Are You Kidding Me?: The Story of Rocco Mediate's Extraordinary Battle With Tiger Woods at the US Open by John Feinstein, Rocco Mediate Read Free Book Online

Finally, they just stopped, took the blindfold off, kicked me out of the car, and left me standing there in the middle of
     nowhere. It was twenty-five degrees — at most — and I’m wearing a T-shirt.
    “I just started walking. I came up a hill and I saw some lights and I figured that was the town of California, so I started
     walking in that direction. At one point I came to a farmhouse with a light and I thought maybe someone might let me in to
     warm up or call someone to come and get me. I got about a hundred yards from the house and this huge dog came charging at
     me. I ran as fast as I could and had to jump a fence to get away from him. I made it, but I cut myself as I was going over
     and I tore off this necklace my mom had given me when I graduated from high school that said ‘Golf Nut’ on it. When I realized
     I’d lost it, I spent a while crawling around in the mud and the dark trying to find it, while the dog kept barking at me from
     the other side of the fence.
    “The whole thing was surreal.”
    He finally made it back to campus at about 7:30 in the morning, bleeding and freezing and scared, but more than anything angry
     — angrier than he had ever been in his life. He went directly to Coach Shuler’s office and waited for him to come in to work.
    “When he walked in, he looked at me and said, ‘What in the world happened to you?’ I said, ‘I’m going to tell you and then
     you’re going to get those sons of bitches over here right now,’ I was
so
angry. I told him if he didn’t do something about it I was going to call my uncle Joe back home and he’d do something about
     it. Uncle Joe isn’t Mafia or anything crazy like that, but if he and my dad had heard about it back then there would have
     been hell to pay. I made sure Coach Shuler understood that.”
    Whatever Shuler understood, he called the four players into his office. Apologies were made. It was agreed they had gone much
     too far with the hazing and they promised never to bother Rocco again. But there was nothing they could say that was going
     to change the way Rocco felt about them from that point on.
    “I was done with them and really done with the school from that day forward,” he said. “I couldn’t get past what they’d done
     to me. To this day, I’m not sure why they did it. They never did anything like that to any of the other freshmen. Maybe it
     was because I’d walked on the team and they felt like I was taking somebody’s spot. I’m really not sure.
    “But I knew I couldn’t stay there. I just had to find a way to get out. And a place to go. I was looking for someplace to
     go from that day forward. I wanted out. I just had to find the right exit door.”

3
No Backup Plan
    I F THE HAZING INCIDENT WAS the beginning of the end for Rocco at California University, his new beginning came that spring at the NCAA Division 2 national
     championships.
    Even though he wasn’t happy with his teammates, Rocco played well enough to qualify for the 1981 nationals, which were held
     that year outside Hartford, Connecticut. As luck would have it, he was paired with a player named Tom Patri, who was the number
     one player for Florida Southern College. Patri would go on to win the individual title that year, and Florida Southern ran
     away with the team title.
    Rocco was impressed — with Patri and with the way Coach Charlie Matlock’s team approached the tournament. “They were so locked
     in on what they were doing and what they wanted to accomplish. They were so much better than everyone else it was a joke.
     We were just happy to be playing. We’d go out every night, have a big dinner, and have a good time. They were there to compete
     and to win. Plus, they all seemed like good guys.”
    Most of the time, athletes are recruited by colleges. In the case of Rocco and Florida Southern, it was the other way around.
    “He walked up to me on the range, introduced himself, and just started talking,” Matlock