All in the family for Louisville’s Bolen

Posted by ESPN.com’s Brian Bennett

	Andy Lyons/Getty Images
	Brock Bolen makes a run during Louisville’s game against utah on Oct. 5, 2007.

It sounds like a college student’s worst nightmare. The summer before your senior year, your parents decide to move in with you.

That’s what happened to Louisville running back Brock Bolen. His father, Jim, and mother, Gail, left their home in Springboro, Ohio, this May and started boarding with Brock. And Brock couldn’t be happier about it.

“It’s great,” he said. “It’s like living back at home with no worries. During camp, I don’t have to worry about mowing the grass, and if I need to eat my mom will cook me some food. After a tough day at football, it’s nice to get back to some family.”

The Bolens aren’t like most families. Their patriarch is a former Green Beret who once worked as a bounty hunter in Africa and later served as Hustler publisher Larry Flynt’s personal valet. Jim Bolen has been in more fistfights than he can remember, was busted by the feds on an international gun-running charge and got rich as a self-made businessman before losing most of his savings when the housing bubble burst.

No wonder, then, that his son turned out so tough. Brock Bolen is a 6-foot, 238-pound bulldog, a tailback/fullback hybrid in the mode of former Rutgers star and current St. Louis Rams running back Brian Leonard. Bolen is one of the most underrated and maybe most underutilized skill players in the Big East, averaging better than 5.5 yards per carry in his two seasons at Louisville.

He should have a bigger role this year as new Cardinals offensive coordinator Jeff Brohm looks to emphasize the power running game. In last year’s finale against Rutgers, Brohm — then the quarterbacks coach — and head coach Steve Kragthorpe took control of the play-calling from Charlie Stubbs, who was let go after the season. Bolen ran for 117 yards and two touchdowns that night, including a career-best 55-yard gain.

“He’s done a great job at tailback for us and a great job in pass protection and blocking as well,” Brohm said. “He’s definitely going to be one of our main guys in the backfield and a great leader for us.”

He’s certainly got a strong support system at home. Brock lives with his parents, his older sister, Stephanie, and his longtime girlfriend, Haley Smith, in a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house in southwestern Louisville. The Bolens bought the house when Brock transferred to Louisville from Illinois in 2005.

Jim and Gail didn’t plan on living there with their son, but they had the misfortune of starting a housing development project just before the market went south. They were forced to sell their 8,400-square foot home outside of Dayton, Ohio, to pay creditors.

“Normally you’d talk about something like this and it’s a horror story,” Jim Bolen said. “But it’s been absolutely great because we’re a very close family. We have badminton tournaments here every night, we play cards and all kinds of games and we cook together. Brock’s really happy. Then again, it’s our house, so he has no choice.”

They came to Louisville to watch Brock play his final season, hoping he’ll make a Mike Alstott-like impact in the NFL. Meanwhile, Jim used his unexpected unemployment time to pen his memoir, titled “No Guts, No Glory: My Incredible Life as a Brawler, Soldier, Mercenary, Bouncer, Bodyguard, Businessman and All-Around Nice Guy.”

Among his many stories in the book, the elder Bolen recounts his years as the leader of a top-secret reconnaissance team during the Vietnam War. On one mission, in November 1968, Bolen was attempting to tap a communications wire in Cambodia. But his helicopter dropped him right in the middle of enemy camp, drawing immediate fire.

The chopper took off, with Jim still attached to the rappelling rope. He was dragged through the jungle at 60 m.p.h., bouncing off trees and avoiding artillery shells while nervously watching his fraying rope. The helicopter flew over a U.S. encampment when the rope snapped, sending Jim hurtling through the canvas of an armored personnel carrier. The sleeping American soldiers, startled by someone dressed in all black that had just dropped into their vehicle from the sky, proceeded to beat him senseless.

And that’s one of his tamer tales. Bolen worked as a contract killer in the former Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and still carries around grizzly photos of the men he shot there. He escorted Flynt through parties at the Playboy mansion and accompanied best-selling author Harold Robbins along the French Riviera. He also spent time behind bars for his numerous bare-knuckle brawls and other misdeeds. In 1978, he was caught in an ATF sting after hatching a plot to run guns to Africa with an undercover agent. He received three years’ federal probation

“My wife has been after me for 15 years to write a book, and she thinks my life story would make a good movie,” said Jim Bolen, who expects the book to be ready for sale by the end of this month. “The main reason I wrote it is for my kids and my grandkids, so that they can remember some of my adventures. It would be nice if it generated some money, too.”

Brock knows his father’s life story, of course. But after reading the book, he said, “I hadn’t heard some of those stories before.”

It will be easy for him to catch up on the family history this fall. He just has to ask one of his roommates.

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