Ruff Road to Glory

By Rich Ruffalo and Mike Moretti

Gradually going blind in his twenties, Rich Ruffalo refused to face reality. And then, one rainy evening, unable to make sense of the road before him, he suddenly felt his car thud against a little girl. Jolted into reality, Ruffalo refused to be knocked down and, instead, put his all into achieving. As a teacher, excelled winning the Princeton

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rich Ruffalo
• Release date: Jan 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781945271229

Rich Ruffalo

Rich Ruffalo is a teacher, coach, athlete, and motivational speaker. In spite of losing his sight, he has won numerous gold medals and national acclaim for his feats on the field and in the classroom, including 1995 "Teacher of the Year" and "Coach of the Year" Awards.

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The Ruff Road to Glory

Rich Ruffalo

with

Mike Moretti

Book Publishers Network

P.O. Box 2256

Bothell, WA 98041

425-483-3040

Copyright © 2017 Rich Ruffalo

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

LCCN 2017930433

ISBN 978-1-945271-33-5

Digital ISBN 978-1-945271-22-9

Editor: Julie Scandora

Cover Design: Scott Book

Design & Layout: Melissa Vail Coffman

eBook: Marcia Breece

This book is dedicated first and foremost to God, for with him all things are possible.

It is further dedicated to:

• all the members of my family, especially Dianne, my wife and inspiration, my daughter, Sara Elizabeth, and my grandson, Matthew Elijah Robertson;

• my friends, especially Mike Moretti, and all my sponsors who have helped me throughout the years;

• the Belleville school system, my colleagues, all my coaches, especially the late Dr. George A. Horn, and my students—past, present, and future.

Lastly, this book is dedicated to all those people who think they can’t because with faith, determination, and hard work your dreams can come true.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

— Theodore Roosevelt

Preface

I was returning home from another day at college, guiding the car cautiously through rain and sleet that made visibility poor. I adjusted my defogger, struggling to see ahead. It was dusk, and the fading light and poor weather combined to make driving a particular strain on my worsening eyesight.

I was doing my darnedest to see, squinting and rapidly closing and opening my eyes to squeeze out any extra vision I could grasp. Nothing I did seemed to help. Seeing through this misty rain and fog was impossible.

I had just about made it to my parents’ house, where I was still a boarder, when I began to relax. I had only a quarter-mile to go, one more turn to make, and I would be safe. I could continue to play my denial game.

Up ahead I could make out a green signal light giving me the right of way. As I drove through the intersection, I suddenly saw a dark shape dart in front of my car.

I slammed on the brakes and heard a terrible screech—and then a sickening thud. My heart sank. I couldn’t believe it. My worst nightmare had come true: I had hit somebody.

I jumped out of the car to see whom I had killed. On the pavement lay a little girl about twelve years old curled up in the fetal position. She wasn’t moving.

* * *

This book is timeless, for it acts as a mirror for all who read it, young and old, and especially for those who have faced rough times. It reflects the tapping of the unlimited potential found in everyone with the courage to persevere. This is the story of an awakening—and although it is my story, it shows the infinite possibilities for everyone, adding a positive exclamation point on the triumph of the human spirit. It is an affirmation of the belief in all that is good and that man can overcome obstacles with faith in God and faith in himself.

My journey through life has been a turbulent one, but one which has also been abundant in its rewards. Now I share my message as an educator and dynamic international motivational speaker.

Chapter 1

As a kid, I never felt I got enough attention at home. My father wasn’t around that much when I was growing up. The poor guy was always out working to support his family. Mom took care of us full time, but with five kids, her attention was spread pretty thin. As the middle child, I found that the best way to get any attention was to harass my older brother, Joe. He would invariably react to my taunts by beating me up, and my mother would then try to intervene. Even though I generally got the worst of it, I was satisfied that at least I had gotten some attention.

One incident stands out clearly in my mind. Our family often went down to the Jersey Shore in the summer, usually to Sandy Hook, which was about an hour’s drive from our home in Bloomfield. Once there, I’d always beat Joe into the water to be ready to ambush him when he made his way in.

On one particular day, I caught Joe when he wasn’t looking and threw a handful of wet sand smack-dab in the middle of his back. I laughed uproariously, extremely proud of myself. Joe simply told me to knock it off. But as soon as I had another chance, I did it again, nailing him right in the back of the head.

This time Joe came after me. I was much quicker than Joe, who at fourteen was stockily built and not as athletic as I was, even though I was two years younger.

As Joe made his way toward me, I dove into the water near an old woman. She was wearing one of those ugly black bathing suits and standing about knee deep in the ocean, minding her own business as she splashed the seawater on her arms and legs.

When I surfaced, my brother saw me and dove after me, clutching at my leg to pull me under water. Then he grabbed at what he thought was my head and began dunking it again and again so as not to allow me to catch my breath. He was really enjoying himself as he tried to make me swallow most of the ocean.

Unfortunately, Joe wasn’t dunking me—he was practically drowning that sweet little old lady, who was probably eighty years old.

What was a kid brother to do? I went tearing up the beach to the lifeguard stand and pointed frantically at Joe. There’s a teenager mugging an old woman in the water! I cried.

The lifeguard blew his shrill whistle and took off down the beach.

Hundreds of people on the beach stood up to see what was happening. Whistles tweeted as all eyes turned to an oblivious Joe, who was still dunking the woman furiously. Finally, Joe looked up and saw he had been abusing not me but the woman. She appeared to be semiconscious. Her body had gone limp, her white hair hung in damp disarray, and her face had lost its color. The lifeguards rushed to her side to revive her.

Understandably, Joe panicked. He took a deep breath and tried to swim underwater to England. He was no match for the lifeguards, however, who pulled him out and gave him a very public dressing down. Poor Joe cried tears of embarrassment. I, on the other hand, cried tears of joy. I had done it. I had made my older brother cry, and in public, no less!

When the lifeguards finally released Joe, he came looking for me. I spotted him coming, and I took off. Usually, I could outrun him, but this time was different. The adrenalin and rage pumping through his body gave him extraordinary speed. He came after me like a lion closing in for the kill.

I ran up and down the beach, kicking sand all over everybody, doing everything I could to shake him. I finally sought refuge in the designated neutral territory next my mother. I quickly sat down at her feet, smiling smugly at Joe because I knew he couldn’t hurt me there. Or so I thought.

I heard my mother say to me, Whatever you get, you deserve for doing that to your brother. With these words, she gave him license to kill.

Joe grabbed me, held me down, and stuffed a handful of sand down my throat.

I screamed and cried while he did it, but deep down, I was still laughing because I had gotten the best of him.

Although I knew how to get Joe to notice me, it didn’t match getting positive and affirming attention from my parents. During those years growing up, I seemed to be always yearning for affection and attention. I really didn’t get much, and to a little kid, that can hurt. It made me feel I wasn’t very important to my family.

Joe was the firstborn son, the spoiled, favorite son. One of my earliest memories is that of my mother taking Joe to school for his first day of kindergarten. I was just three years old, but I’ll never forget it. Even at that young age, I felt less important than Joe, as though I always stood in his shadow.

On this first day of school, Joe was terrified. He hung back when we reached the classroom door, but I walked right in. My eyes lit up at what I saw. There was a big sliding board, huge building blocks, a giant metal truck in the corner of the room, and a whole bunch of kids to play with.

I made a beeline for that stuff and was having a ball going up and down the sliding board and playing with the other kids. Joe wouldn’t even walk into the room. He just held onto my mother’s dress, and he kept crying and crying. Mom tried to coax him into staying, but he didn’t want to hear it. When she told him he had to stay, he threw up on the floor.

While Joe was pleading with her to let him go home, I was begging her to let me stay. Of course, neither of us got our way, which left Mom with two screaming, crying kids on her hands.

That is my first vivid memory, and it paints a good picture of my personality. I like being around people, having a good time, being physically and socially active. I have always enjoyed making people laugh, being the one who makes sure everyone has a good time, even when I was little. When I was just a kid, I would entertain all the aunts and uncles at my grandfather’s house in Brooklyn, putting on a show like a standup comic. That was my way of getting some attention and seems to be an ongoing theme in my life.

When I was about four years old, my parents noticed I couldn’t see very well, and they took me for my first pair of glasses. In those days, eyeglasses were not stylish. Mine were twotone specials, black on the top of the frame, clear on the lower half. In my eyes, I looked goofy, and I felt like a nerd. I really stood out because, at that age, not many kids wore glasses. I felt self-conscious, ostracized, different from everybody else.

No one knew at the time that three of the five Ruffalo kids—my brother, Joe, my younger sister, Jane, and I—would all develop the dreaded disease called retinitis pigmentosa and eventually lose our eyesight. In simplest terms, RP is an inherited disease that causes degeneration of the retina, the back part of the eyeball on which the image is formed. If both parents carry the recessive gene, the disease is passed on to approximately 25 percent of their offspring.

Wearing glasses presented one those setbacks in my life that made me a better person because I was able to overcome it. I leapt over my first hurdle when I won over my five-year-old classmates who would tease and torture me about those nerdylooking eyeglasses.

Even in kindergarten, kids can be cruel. In our class, we lined up every morning for cookies and milk. From the very first day, the two toughest kids in my class decided to pick on me. They would push and shove me and try to bend my glasses. I never got to eat my cookies. They would either crush them or eat the cookies themselves, every single day. I was afraid of them, but I didn’t know what to do.

My mother had told me if anybody bothered me, to come and tell her. So after a week, I did. Mom, these boys at school are picking on me. They’re stealing my cookies and beating me up. What should I do?

My mother’s sage advice was, Tell them to stop.

I actually tried that, and it failed dismally.

After a few more days, I went back to my mother. Again I said, Mom, those boys are still bothering me. What should I do?

Mom thought for a second and said, Tell the teacher.

I couldn’t do that. After all, I did have some pride. Finally, several months later, I reported to my mother for the last time.

Mom, those boys are still bugging me.

She asked me if I had told the teacher.

I said no and explained why I hadn’t.

She seemed to understand. Finally, she said the words I’d been waiting to hear: Hit them back.

The next morning, I couldn’t wait to get to school. I ran all the way, the adrenalin pumping furiously in my young body.

When cookie-time came, we all ran for our usual positions in line. I watched as the two bullies converged on me, beside myself with excitement. They were expecting the usual human punching bag.

But they didn’t find it that day. All that professional wrestling I had watched on TV came in handy. I grabbed the first boy and slammed him to the ground, his mouth agape in surprise. I picked up the second boy and threw him on top of the other one. The teacher purposefully turned her back on the scene, feigning ignorance. She knew this was an important day in my life.

I began jumping up and down on the two bullies, laughing gleefully. It felt great. It was the first time in my life I stood up for myself and felt any self-confidence. I have never forgotten that feeling.

That incident taught me that wearing glasses didn’t make me inferior. Every day after that, I got to eat my cookies. I had earned my own self-respect, as well as the respect of those two bullies, who soon became my best friends.

* * *

I was a skinny little kid from a second-generation Italian-American working-class family. Like any family, we had our share of hardships, but we had a pretty good family life. At our house, there was always something going on and someone to do it with. The Ruffalo household was a cacophony of sound with constant kibitzing, playing, laughing, and teasing adding to the happy sounds.

When I was growing up, I didn’t get to spend much time with my father because he was usually working two or three jobs. He was born in 1919 and worked all his life. His father, Antonio, who was a contractor, died when Pop was only six; when he was twelve, his mother, Serafina, died under suspicious circumstances while collecting rent monies. Needless to say, Pop had a traumatic life.

Although Pop was never around as much as we would have liked, when he was home, all the kids loved to be with him. We’d take turns sitting on his lap as he recited poems and told us stories. He always treated each of us kids fairly, giving his attention and affection equally to all. We used to call him Plop, a variation of Pop that seemed to fit because he’d come home so tired from work he’d simply plop down in his chair.

My mother, Rose Sconzo Ruffalo, was from the tough Red Hook section of Brooklyn. One of fourteen children, she grew up in a very strict, regimented, patriarchal Sicilian family steeped in tradition. Everybody would kiss hello and goodbye and show respect at mealtime by sitting in the right chair from the oldest on down to the youngest.

Her father, Frank Sconzo, was something else, a Runyonesque character if ever there was one. He was a bootlegger during Prohibition and who knows what else. We all loved to sit at his knee and listen to him tell us his stories. He looked like an Italian version of Alfred Hitchcock, a bowlegged, bald-headed, stocky man. He presented quite a picture in his calf-length socks, garters, and long, walking shorts, speaking broken English with his thick Italian accent.

I have a great fondness for my grandfather. With very little formal education, he managed to be very resourceful and to thrive during some difficult economic times. He was a patriarchal figure who took care of everyone in the family, and his advice on a wide variety of topics was eagerly sought. A large part of my personality was inspired by my grandfather.

Sometimes Grandpa would come out to New Jersey, pile all five of us kids into the car, and take us to the beach at Sandy Hook. As he pulled up to the parking attendant, he would get this pained look on his face. Then he’d proceed to tell the attendant how he had a bad heart and couldn’t walk too far, so could he please park in that reserved parking spot right next to the beach?

The parking attendant couldn’t help but grant the poor old man his wish, and we’d always end up with the best parking spot. Once out of the car, my grandfather would walk very slowly until he got out of the attendant’s line of sight, and then he’d sprint onto the beach and dive head first into the ocean. Not only did he con the attendant out of the beach fee and parking fee, but he also was the first one in the water!

Later, he’d take us to the food stand on the beach and fiddle around with the clams, which at that time cost two dollars a dozen. He’d walk up to buy them, pulling just a dollar out of his pocket. The man behind the counter would say, Hey, Pops, it’s two bucks. Grandpa would made a great show of looking in the other pocket and pulling out nothing but lint. Sadly, he’d grab my hand and say in broken English, Come on, Richie, let’s go. We can no buy it. Put evert’ing back.

But he did it in such a way that the guy at the counter would almost cry and tell him, Hey, Pops, it’s okay. Take whatever you want.

Then he’d load up the bag and walk outside real slow. Of course, when he got out of sight, he’d sprint to the car and have a good laugh. He was a panic. He really was.

* * *

When I was five, a huge snowstorm came through, leaving a knee-deep blanket of snow. I was so excited! I bundled up and went out to play, making angels in the snow and building a snowman. I was having a wonderful time, but in a matter of minutes, I was soaked from head to toe. When I went inside for a change of clothes, my mother couldn’t get my shoes back on my feet, no matter how hard she tried.

Evidently, my feet had swollen up, and I could tell that my mother was worried about it. She decided to take me to the doctor’s office, which was just a few blocks away. I don’t remember anything about the examination, but I remember the walk home.

About a block from our house, my mother turned and asked, How would you like to go into the store and pick something out for yourself? Surprised, I looked up at her and could see in her face that something was terribly wrong. It was the first time my mother had offered to buy me something for no reason. And she was speaking to me softly and kindly, another bad sign. I was used to her speaking to me more firmly, with a no-nonsense tone in her voice.

I picked out a book about the birds of North America. She bought me a candy bar to go with it. This was a rare treat. As we walked out of the store, I looked up at her and asked, Mom, why are you buying me this stuff? Am I going to die?

She broke down then and began to sob uncontrollably. I had never seen my mother cry before. She said, You’re not going to die, but you have to go to the hospital. When I asked her how long I would be there, she replied worriedly, I just don’t know.

I could read people pretty well, even in my younger years. By her response, I knew I was in big trouble.

On my arrival at Mountainside Hospital, the two orderlies whisked me off to my room. I’ll never forget that first day in the hospital. I heard someone say I had acute nephritis. I didn’t know what it was, but I thought to myself it couldn’t be that cute. It was actually a serious kidney infection, and within the next twenty-four hours, I received eighteen injections. I counted each and every one of them. I ran out of tears from the pain and fright. Then an elderly nurse showed me a trick. She pinched my arm and said, This is how much it hurts. If you can take this, you can take a needle. I never cried again when I got stuck with a needle.

I was hospitalized for a month. I never knew if I was going to live or die. All the doctor would say was, You’re going to be all right. But then he would shake his head as he walked away.

I was there so long I started to learn the hospital codes. For example, I knew a red tag on my bed in the morning meant I wouldn’t be eating but would be getting another shot instead. My ward had twelve kids in it, and the first thing each of us did every morning was to check the color of the tag on our beds. It was a great day if the tag was any color but red.

Even at that age, I felt like I was an entertainer on stage. I’d try to make the other kids laugh and get them to join me in silly pranks. Once, when the mean nurse walked by for a bed check, I got all the other kids to start jumping up and down until our pants fell down and our butts hung out. The kids loved that, and their laughter could be heard throughout the ward. The nurse told my parents that I was the ringleader. I never heard the end of it.

My parents and my grandfather visited me often. When they left, they always seemed surprised that I would crack a joke, even though I didn’t know whether I was going to make it.

Finally, I was released from the hospital and sent home where I was not allowed to leave my bed for the next four months. I missed the entire second half of kindergarten. I was a kindergarten dropout!

It was nearly six months after that snowfall that I was finally able to sit outside. I remember how dizzy I felt when I walked down the steps to sit in a chair. It felt so good to breathe in fresh air. I don’t know when I had turned the corner, but I made it.

I can remember that I was never afraid to die, even though I thought I might. I just knew something better was in store for me. I didn’t know what, but I felt my life couldn’t end just yet. The experience gave me an appreciation for life that I never forgot. Is that ever an understatement!

Years later, when I was about fourteen, we had a family picnic in our backyard. We had a basketball setup there where my brother Joe and I used to shoot a lot of hoops. We got to be pretty hot shooters, too.

On this afternoon, we got the bright idea to have a basketball-shooting contest. Joe and I each put a dollar in a pot and got all ten of our uncles to do the same. That bought each of us a chance to take ten shots from the foul line; whoever sank the most baskets won the pot. Back in the early 1960s, a pot worth twelve bucks seemed like an awful lot of money. It would buy a heckuva lot of sodas, candy, and baseball cards.

My brother Joe and I made a pact that if either of us won, we’d split the twelve bucks. We were pretty confident. After all, we were the ones with the most practice and experience, and we were playing on our home court. And none of our uncles was very athletically inclined.

My brother made six of his ten shots, and I made eight. Just as I was ready to grab the pot, my grandfather, who was about seventy-five years old at the time, wanted to know what was going on. When we explained the contest to him, he insisted that he wanted a try too.

Grandpa put his dollar into the pot and walked up to the foul line. We couldn’t help but laugh. Here was this short, old, bowlegged, bald-headed, chubby Italian guy from the old country, standing at the foul line, holding the ball between his legs, ready to shoot underhanded like Wilt Chamberlain.

Well, Grandpa was the one who had the last laugh. He proceeded to swish nine out of ten to win the pot. Our mouths dropped open. We shook our heads in disbelief. Somehow, Grandpa always came out on top.

About this time in my life, I began to develop a little violent streak because I really wasn’t happy with myself. In my opinion, I was not a good-looking kid. I was too skinny and wore those awful glasses. I felt the glasses made it hard for me to be accepted because, when it came to choosing sides for teams, people avoided picking a kid wearing glasses.

To the other kids, I was an uncoordinated nerd, a goofy doofus, a four-eyed bookworm. Those glasses earned me some very negative labels, which was crazy because around that time, Superman was very popular on TV and in the comics. Everybody knew that Clark Kent, who was Superman’s alter ego, wore glasses, and he was pretty rough whenever he took them off.

I always wanted to prove myself athletically and tried hard to be excellent at whatever I did. I would soon get my chance.

Every year in Bloomfield, they held the Town Olympics for all the school kids. I was the fastest kid in Brookside Elementary School, and in fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, I represented our class in the fifty-yard dash.

The top three finishers in each event were presented with a trophy, a prized possession, which every kid coveted. In fourth and fifth grade, I failed to place in the money, but by sixth grade, I felt a little faster, a little stronger. I had my sights set on a trophy.

I wanted desperately to be somebody. I wanted to be a star, just like Mickey Mantle, the New York Yankee great, who was my hero. I wanted to impress all the kids from the other schools, all the little girls, my family, and even my teachers. As usual, I was just trying to get some attention.

I easily won my heat in the trials. By the time the runners were called for the finals, my adrenalin was