'I'M MARKED FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE'

Chris Suckow sees himself as a marked man.

The 25-year-old self-employed contractor is successful in his business,
having expanded his decorative concrete business, Surface Specialties of
Mississippi, from South Mississippi to include work in Hattiesburg.

Many men his age have not come this far professionally.

Many men his age have not endured what he has personally.

"At 25 years old, I'm basically where I should have been three years ago,"
he said with unflinching self-analysis. "Every day is a struggle - not so
much because of other people, but mentally. I feel like I've got to work a
little harder than everyone else."

But, Suckow admits, he's one of the lucky ones.

"I have such a great family who gave me love and support. I didn't end up in
a box."

To Chris Suckow, getting involved in drugs - dealing or using - will get you
only two places in life: in prison or in a pine box.

Suckow spent 15 months in a federal prison camp at Eglin Air Force Base,
sentenced 13 months after pleading guilty to one count of quantity
distribution of ecstasy.

He was a star athlete at Harrison Central. A five-year letterman on the
soccer team, Suckow also was the placekicker for the Red Rebels football
team.

He was highly recruited by several Division I schools, including Tennessee
and Alabama.

"That's when I started messing around with the stuff, on a senior-year
recruiting trip," he said. "I got caught up in my own hype."

At first, he said, it was smoking marijuana "socially." With a 27 on his ACT
and a 3.2-grade-point average, he figured he had a scholarship in the bag.

"I thought I had the free ride made," he said. "I started slacking on my
grades. I didn't do my homework, I didn't go to school. My GPA went from 3.2
to 2.4. All of a sudden, I was academically ineligible."

For a highly recruited, sought-after athlete, it was a bitter blow. He wound
up at Gulf Coast Community College for a year.

"I started using marijuana on a daily basis. Ending up at a junior college
hurt my ego. But after a year, Southern Miss called and I felt I had to get
out."

Suckow transferred in 1997 and worked hard at training camp, earning the No.
1 kicking spot. The day after he was named, he strained the groin muscle in
his kicking leg and was redshirted for the season.

"I knew that with the kickers we had in camp that if they had a good year, I
wouldn't be back," he said. "My ego got me again and I left."

For the first time since he could remember, Suckow wasn't on a team.

"I no longer was 'the man,' " he said. "I was in a big period of depression.
I started going to rave parties and using drugs more and more."

Suckow said he realizes now he was running away - hiding from himself.
Getting high helped him forget. "It was all my own fault, but I wasn't
dealing with it and the drugs were snowballing."

By end of that year, he was dealing drugs. It started as sharing what he had
with friends. But as more people started coming to him as a source, he got a
different high: the feeling he got when he played sports, of fitting in and
belonging.

"It wasn't the same, but mentally it felt that way," he said.

The high didn't last long. Early in 1998, he got a phone call from his
father, Bill.

"My dad called me and told me a federal SWAT team came by the house to pick
me up," said Suckow, who happened to be in Hattiesburg that day. He returned
to the Coast and told his father what he had been doing.

"At the time, it was a big relief," he said of the conversation with his
father. "When you do stuff like that, and get into drugs, there are only two
ways to end up - in jail or dead.

"I just wasn't strong enough to end it."

Suckow said his father told him his parents would stand behind his son if he
faced up to the consequences.

"And they still are to this day. I couldn't have done it without my
parents."

The Suckows posted a $75,000 property bond to get their son out of jail
while he awaited sentencing after pleading guilty to distributing ecstasy.

Suckow was on house arrest for eight months. He wore an ankle bracelet. His
father added a second phone line to accommodate the conditions of the house
arrest.

"The first month was really hard because they were both working and it was
eight hours a day by myself. You don't realize the effect drugs have on you.
I almost couldn't function. But they were really patient with me. It shows
how much parents love you.

"I couldn't put up with me; I'd have sent me back to jail."

After eight months, Suckow was able to leave the house and get a job working
construction. He went back to school and heard that Gulf Coast was starting
a soccer team. He received permission from his parole officer to try out for
the team.

"So I went to the tryout with the house arrest bracelet on my ankle," he
said. "I played the first three weeks of the season with it on."

Suckow was back in school, playing sports and training with William Carey's
nationally ranked NAIA soccer team when his sentencing came up and he was
sent to the federal prison at Eglin Air Force Base near Pensacola.

"When I first got there, I went into a depression," he said." I had worked
so hard for 13 months when I was out on bond and gotten back on track.

"But people forget everything you've done once they hear you're in prison."

His parents traveled to Eglin for every visiting weekend. His mom, Nan, sent
packages frequently and a few close friends stayed in touch. He read,
studied and tried to turn his time into a positive.

As his sentence came to a close, he heard from Damon McDaniel, a Gulfport
police officer who also was coaching the Stingrays, a semipro football team
on the Coast. He asked Suckow to think about trying out for the team.

"I had a pair of Chuck Taylors and a rubber football," Suckow said. "I'd
take my prison issue boots and place them 10 yards apart and use a rake to
hold the football so I could practice kicking."

He worked at it constantly and even had a few of the other inmates help him
by shagging balls.

Suckow was released Dec. 18, 2000.

"That was a meaningful Christmas," he said. "I told my parents, 'Don't get
me anything. I'm just happy to be here.' "

Now out and a convicted felon, Suckow started again, but said he found it
hard to find work with a record.

"I was 23 and a convicted felon," he said. "Few people out there would hire
me."

He worked for a trucking company and an insulation company before he got
into the business he's in now, working in decorative concrete.

"I go and do a hard day's work and go shopping on the weekends," he said.
"And it's a lot more fulfilling than buying things with drug money."

In two years, he's built the company into a success, plays football for fun
with the Stingrays and has been contacted by the New Orleans Voodoo of the
Arena Football League about joining them in training camp next month.

"Nothing is bad enough in this world to make me go back to that," Suckow
said. "I'm marked for the rest of my life."

He also knows that everyone has to make their own decisions. But he does
have some advice.

"Weigh the pros and cons," he said. "You know it's wrong. I knew it was
wrong when I was doing it. You have to decide if it's worth getting
arrested.

"Look at who it's going to hurt. If you don't have parents, look around you.
Friends, people in the community, people you play with. It's something you
can never take back."

Suckow said he wasn't sure he wanted to talk about what happened. He thought
perhaps it would be better to put the past behind him. Then he read a story
in the newspaper about Jared Bishop, who died of a drug overdose. Jared had
been a friend of his younger brother, Adam, and he had gone to school with
Jared's older brother.

"People think, 'It won't happen to me,' but it does happen and it did happen
and it's no fun."