INDIANAPOLIS — Every time Garett Bolles walks into an interview with a team at the NFL Combine he’s asked the same questions.
“[They ask] if I can take care of the off-the-field issues.”
The ever prevalent “off-the-field issues” cliche is thrown around quite often during the draft process, maybe a player posted a video smoking weed or got arrested for being drunk and disorderly, it can be slapped on a player very easily. With Bolles, it’s much more.
As a teenager, he was kicked out or suspended from five different schools. He was involved with drugs, he was arrested for vandalizing, he spent time in jail, he was kicked out of his house by his father. Garett Bolles was nearly a no-hoper.
Without a home and living on the streets, Bolles’ high school lacrosse coach, Greg Freeman, took him under his wing, offering him a roof over his head if he would commit to getting his life together. It was a clean slate for the future NFL prospect.
“When the Freeman family came and picked me up off of the streets, that became my family,” the Utah product told reporters at the combine on Thursday. “I love them dearly. They changed my life forever, and I’m the man I am because of them.”
Bolles got a job, got a life and began to attend church with the Freemans. Eventually, he would decide to take an LDS mission which would bring him to a place he now envisions as a potential home.
“I love Colorado,” he says, reflecting on his mission in Colorado Springs. “I have a heart there because those were the people that I taught on my mission so if I end up going there, I’d be just fine.”
“My mission was the greatest thing that ever happened to me,” he added. “I became the man I am today because I learned, I grew up, I matured… I know what it takes, the hard work, waking up and following a schedule, that’s what you have to do in this business. It is a business and you have to follow a schedule to be successful, and that’s what I plan on doing… We wake up at 6:30, you say a prayer, you go and you have a companion—you do your personal study, read the bible, go over the missionary lessons—we get together as a companionship, and we go out and teach. You knock doors and you just do whatever it takes to find those people that are in need.”
Bolles can relate to those in need.
After his mission, the mountain of a man would decide to take up football another time, eventually making the decision to attend Snow College in Ephraim, Utah. He developed a work ethic in school, he developed his NFL dream, but more importantly, he met Natalie Williams, a woman he now describes as “the most wonderfulest person.”
Williams is now Bolles’ wife; they were married just nine months after they met in March of 2015 and just this January, they had their first child.
“I have the best sweetheart in the whole, wide world,” he says with a smile. “I love her dearly. She gave birth to my child, so she deserves everything in the world. I’m just grateful I’ll be able to support her and take care of her by playing the game I love.”
While he still describes himself as “the nastiest prick” on the field, Garett Bolles is a changed man off of it.
“I don’t even know the old Garett,” he explained. “When you become a husband, and you become a father, you sort of have to grow up, you have to become the person you want to be, and so I plan on just doing whatever it takes… I know exactly what I want and where I’m going… I have to take care of them.”
Garett Bolles loves football, he dreams of being a Pro Bowler, but he plays for much more than the love of the game. He plays for his family, blood and otherwise. He plays for the ones he’ll go home to when he takes the pads off.
“Every time I come home I give my wife a beautiful kiss, I hold my son, and we just sit there together as a family. I’m just beyond blessed that I’ll be able to live these experiences with them.”
The turnaround for Garett Bolles is complete; he’s officially a success story. He’s going to be an NFL player and make a whole bunch of money for himself and that family. All that’s left is to find out where that home he’ll come back to is going to be.
