It wasn’t supposed to go this way for Arron Agler.  He was supposed to be getting ready for what would have been his 8th season in the NFL.  Instead, his dead body was found in a parking lot of a hospital in Akron, OH.

When Nick Saban landed the former Otsego High School star about 12 years ago, he was joining a prized recruiting class of Julian Peterson, Josh Thornhill, Dawan Moss, Antonio Gates (yep, that Antonio Gates), and his competition at QB Ryan Van Dyke at Michigan State University.  Van Dyke would move ahead of Agler on the depth chart, and he would only see 1 game of mop up duty against Eastern Michigan in his entire career as a Spartan.  He would end up transferring to Kent State. What went wrong at MSU for him? No one really knows, but it isn’t uncommon for a super recruit to lose out and sit the bench in college.  What happened after his brief college career is much more sad.

One of the most ironic facts about Agler’s life is that he was a guest speaker for the DARE program (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) while he was class president of his high school.  However, after leaving MSU (but probably starting there) Agler became wrapped up in drugs.  I spoke with someone that knew Agler personally and that individual described what happened to him as “a sad story.” That Agler “Was a small time dealer.  A user.  He pretty much wasted everything.”  I can identify with those statements.  When one lets drugs consume their life, they are a waste.   Unfortunately, for every individual that finds hope and turns it around, the other 9 end up in jails, in-and-out of rehabs or end up dead.  Agler’s addiction and way of life ended up becoming the end of him. He was shot while allegedly robbing a drive-thru store with another man who was identified as Dennis Williams of Tallmadge, Ohio.

Agler’s death is just another cold reality of life how fragile life can be, especially when it is treated so haphazardly.   One hopes that people can learn from such nonsense, that things like this can be easily avoided.  This wasn’t a case of a kid being a product of his environment, but a case of one losing direction when his original plan doesn’t go his way.  This all more of a reason to stress the dangers of drugs and alcohol to high school athletes, who sometimes feel as if they are immortal as they head off to college.  But all the education in the world will not act as a deterrent.  The power of drugs is so incredibly cunning, baffling and powerful.

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