Against All Odds E-Book

Anthony Razzano

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 304

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

An extraordinary story of faith and healing in the face of tragedy In Against All Odds, NFL agent, Certified Public Accountant, husband, and father Anthony Razzano delivers an inspiring tale of resilience and perseverance in the face of almost unimaginable hardship. Caught in a catastrophic fire when he was only twelve years old, the author defied the odds--and the grim prognoses offered by his doctors--to become the starting outside linebacker for the New Castle Red Hurricanes under legendary coach Lindy Lauro. You'll read about how the young Razzano endured months of grueling rehabilitation, 43 surgeries, 134 blood transfusions, and years of physical therapy only to emerge even stronger on the other side. The book offers: * The transformational narrative of the author's almost unbelievable story of tragedy and endurance * A beacon of hope to the millions of children, parents, and athletes moving through their own journeys * Fuel for your own faith and spirit as you encounter and withstand life's ordinary and extraordinary challenges A singular and awe-inspiring exploration of one boy's successful attempt to persevere through nearly unbearable burdens, Against All Odds is an inspirational and transformative story you won't be able to put down.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

1 Happy Halloween

2 On Fire!

3 The ER

4 Mobilizing

5 The Scream Room

6 All Saints Day

7 The Third Day

8 Friday the 13th

9 The Roller Coaster

10 Last Rites

11 Dawn

12 Merry Christmas

13 Two Steps Back

14 Home Sweet Home

15 Ocean City

16 It Takes a Village

17 And His Hair Was Perfect

18 Gridiron

19 A Journey It Was

20 Reflections

Your Beliefs Will Determine Whether or Not You Are Successful

Success Isn't a Lonely Endeavor

You Are Not Going to Wander Your Way to Victory; Embrace Your Setback and Make a Plan to Overcome It

Gratitude Is the Key

Finally, the Most Important Lesson Is This:

Don't Ever Let a Setback Define Who You Are

21 Photo Gallery

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Index

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Index

Wiley End User License Agreement

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AGAINST ALL ODDS

A Story of Faith, Courage, and Never Giving Up

ANTHONY RAZZANO

Copyright © 2024 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data:

Names: Razzano, Anthony, author.

Title: Against all odds: a story of faith, courage and never giving up / by Anthony Razzano.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, 2024. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023014988 (print) | LCCN 2023014989 (ebook) | ISBN 9781394199716 (cloth) | ISBN 9781394199723 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781394199730 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Razzano, Anthony. | Burns and scalds in children—Patients—United States—Biography. | Accident victims—United States—Biography. | New Castle (Pa.)—Biography

Classification: LCC RD96.4 .R373 2024 (print) | LCC RD96.4 (ebook) | DDC 617.1/10083—dc23/eng/20230703

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023014988

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023014989

Cover Design: Paul McCarthy

Cover Image: Courtesy of the Author

Foreword

Every once in a while, we come across stories that stop us in our tracks, causing us to reconsider our own capacities for resilience, determination, and self‐belief. Anthony Razzano's Against All Odds is one such story that serves as a beacon of inspiration, illuminating a path of triumph over adversities and profound resilience. His journey from being a young survivor of a catastrophic fire to becoming a successful certified public accountant, NFL agent, husband, and father is not just a remarkable tale of survival but also an incredible lesson on how to thrive in life and business.

As Anthony so powerfully conveys, the challenges we face in life, whether they are life‐threatening or self‐imposed barriers of the mind, are not there to define us but to help us define ourselves. His remarkable recovery journey and subsequent professional success illustrate this principle profoundly. A catastrophic accident might have knocked him down, but it was his ability to rise, to keep pushing, and to refuse to be defined by his circumstances that has made him who he is today.

In Against All Odds, Anthony shares invaluable wisdom about resilience, self‐belief, and success—wisdom that has been forged in the crucible of unimaginable hardship and struggle. Whether it is about dealing with setbacks in business or facing personal hardships, he underscores the importance of seeing past the immediate obstacle to find the opportunities that lie within. He writes, “the only failure in life was not to try.” These words resonate with profound truth for anyone who has ever faced daunting odds, in business or in life.

In our professional journeys, we often encounter roadblocks and challenges. However, as Anthony's story reminds us, the mindset and tactics that we deploy to overcome these challenges can shape our successes. Anthony's life is a testament to the power of unwavering self‐belief and hard work, and the story he shares in this book can serve as a powerful guide for anyone looking to succeed in business or personal life.

What particularly resonates about Anthony's journey is his relentless pursuit of knowledge and the emphasis on teamwork. Anthony reminds us that no one achieves success alone. Just as he had his team of doctors, family, and caregivers during his recovery, it's essential in business to have a dedicated team that shares your vision and contributes their unique skills and insights.

Furthermore, his story underscores the importance of continuous learning and adaptability. Regardless of the obstacle you're facing, becoming an expert in understanding it, just as Anthony did with his recovery, allows you to formulate strategies to overcome it effectively. These principles are as applicable in business as they are in life.

Perhaps the most inspiring aspect of Anthony's journey is his ceaseless optimism and unwavering faith. His belief that there is a blessing wrapped in every struggle is a powerful reminder that our perspectives can often shape our realities. This philosophy permeates every aspect of Anthony's life, from his personal recovery journey to his success in business, and it serves as a profound lesson for all readers.

Anthony's remarkable story of resilience and triumph is an inspiration to us all, but Against All Odds is more than just an inspiring story. It's a blueprint for success. It shows us how to harness adversity, believe in ourselves, form and work with a strong team, continuously learn and adapt, and maintain an optimistic perspective.

As you delve into this extraordinary book, I hope that you, like me, will be inspired by Anthony's story and draw strength from his example. More important, I hope you will see in his journey a road map for your own path to success, no matter what challenges you may face along the way.

Enjoy the journey. I assure you, it is an extraordinary one.

—Scott Empringham

CEO/founder, Empringham Media Group, LLC

1Happy Halloween

I thought the butterflies had died long ago, migrated south with the adventure of my youth. Today, they reappeared, and my stomach is in turmoil. Don't get me wrong, I love my life. There's plenty to be excited about. I have a beautiful wife, daughter, and son. I have a successful CPA and investment practice in Western Pennsylvania. I'm grateful that I never had to work a backbreaking, deafening manufacturing job as did so many of the men who built this town. But today, I am more nervous than I have been in years, because I'm about to coach my son Anthony in his first tackle football game at the historic Taggart Stadium.

In our hometown, New Castle, Pennsylvania, there are two religions: Sundays are for church and autumn is for football. The people of New Castle are blue‐collar, hardworking people. A good portion of our town is of Italian descent. In fact, most of us can trace our roots back to the Province of Caserta, in the Campania Region, which is located off the Amalfi Coast of Italy. Local legend tells of a St. Vitus Catholic Church in Caserta, which is the reason we are members of St. Vitus Church in New Castle.

As important as our faith is, weekends in the fall belong to football. As a boy growing up in New Castle, getting your first football jersey is just as much a rite of passage as your first kiss. In most families here, the sporting tradition traces back generations to the 1920s, when the first major wave of immigrants came from Italy in search of work, often to send money back home so that the rest of the family could come over to build a new life.

Now, I'm helping my children build their lives. But today is Anthony's day; he will take his first steps carrying the Razzano family's proud football legacy to the field in his most important game to date. Coaching football doesn't make me nervous. In some ways, I feel I was born to be a coach. But this game is different. I want my son to taste the glory that not only I have known but that also has been carried on for generations in my family.

Don't believe anyone who tells you that you can't travel back in time. Feeling those butterflies at this time of year awakens my senses and memories of a time when I was 12 years old, sitting in my room, looking at my uniform and shoulder pads, getting ready for the biggest day of my life.

I remember the exact date of my first big game: Saturday, October 31, 1987, Halloween, and the weather was absolutely perfect. The smell of football was in the air. That kind of weather doesn't test your faith. You just knew that God was alive in the beauty of the crisp blue skies and the comfort of the autumn breeze. Tonight was the night that I would gaze up at the stars and step into the next phase of my life. As a Pop Warner player, I was about to play my very first night game under the lights at Taggart Stadium, one of the oldest and most hallowed football stadiums in America.

In 1929, Taggart was one of the first football fields to have lights installed for night play. In the 1940s and 1950s, more than 12,000 people would cram into the bleachers for big games. Since then, playing under the lights has been sacred in our community, a gift from God. I will never forget the anticipation; I could not wait to step on the field and add to the family football tradition.

Thinking back, I can't help but remember the four years leading up to that moment. They were tough. My older brother Eugene, known to all of us as GeGe, and I lived with our mom. Dad was as handsome as they come and quite the ladies' man. Mom was beautiful as well.

When they met in 1968, Dad was 17, trying to thumb a ride on Mill Street. Mom, who was 20, gave him a lift and they became inseparable. A few months later, after Dad's 18th birthday, they got married, and the following year, they had GeGe. The overwhelming passion that fueled their love also fueled their fights. When those two stubborn tempers battled, the room became hotter than any steel mill in Pennsylvania. Even though they truly loved one another, and still do, the intensity of their fights grew and one night, out of the blue, after 15 years of marriage, they separated on a whim.

When they separated, Dad moved crosstown for a while. But now, he was about to move with his new girlfriend and their kids to a house just a few blocks away from us. I wouldn't have to get picked up and dropped off anymore. I could just walk to Dad's by myself. A small step toward normalcy.

Mom took a while to get over the separation. Once the traditional Italian housewife who took care of the kids, Mom went to beauty school and got a job at a local hair salon. But everyone knew she was a talented cook. So, she took a leap of faith and was working on opening a new coffee shop in downtown New Castle. In two days, Mom would be opening the doors of her business and the start of her new life. Despite the nerves of starting a business and having a payroll to meet, it was obvious how excited she was for the fresh start.

The week before my first big game, tensions were particularly high between my parents. My mother needed money, presumably for the rapidly approaching opening of the coffee shop, and she showed up at my dad's office building to get it. When he refused to give it to her, she became angry and the two fiery tempers were at it again. She screamed as loudly as she could for everyone to hear. He acted like he didn't care. That made it worse, and she swept all the papers off Dad's desk. Eventually, the police were called to escort her out of the building.

During the week, as I split time between their homes, each would make sure to let me know whose fault the incident was.

“Your dad doesn't want to pay.”

“Your mom was acting like a lunatic.”

The biggest changes were to the holidays. From the time I was born, our big Italian family celebrated with enormous feasts and celebrations. The feeling of love always filled the room. But now, GeGe and I would spend most of our holiday time on the road, shuttling between other relatives' homes—first Mom's family, then Dad's. Instead of being excited about the holidays, we couldn't wait for them to be over.

I used to enjoy all of us being together as a family so much. Now that I had two homes, it was as if I didn't have any. Mom had to move us to a much smaller house several blocks away, putting more distance between me and my best friends Artie and Johnny. When you're 12, it doesn't matter why. All you know is that you can't see your friends as much, and it's not cool.

By this time, although I was just 12, it felt like I was on my own. GeGe had just started his freshman year at Westminster College. Once Mom and Dad split, GeGe unwillingly became something of a guardian to me. He and his friends—Yawgie, PJ, and Zub—were as tight as you could get. They did everything together, and they allowed me to tag along. But there were no mascots in this crew. I had to keep up.

Through watching them, I learned what was cool—what music to listen to, how to dress. And I had to do everything I could to fit in. I wasn't allowed to be an ordinary kid. If I goofed around during a card game or interfered with a game of pool the way young kids do, they wouldn't tolerate it. Everything was a competition. And if we bet a few bucks on a game and I lost, I had to pay up. No discounts.

But there were benefits. Lots of them. The older girls who hung with GeGe's crew would spoil me with attention, which gave me a lot of confidence. When I was with girls my own age or even a few years older, I had the courage to ask them to take a walk with me, to ask for a kiss. I was maturing much faster than the average 12‐year‐old because I had to.

Now that I was in junior high, I was meeting kids from all over town. In elementary school, you were mostly with the kids closest to home. I started hanging out with older kids, and my house became one of the places to do things when no adults were home.

I was meeting everyone—the best athletes and the prettiest girls. The night before the big game, we'd gone to a Halloween party at Jessica Joseph's house, and we had a blast. The girls dressed up as football players. The boys dressed as cheerleaders.

That night, my friend Z and some other kids were playing around with a Ouija board. They conjured up two words: Anthony and hurt. It freaked everyone out, me most of all. But Ouija boards were kids' stuff now. We were onto bigger things. At the end of the night, when we were leaving the party, I kissed every pretty girl on the cheek goodbye. I was becoming my own man. GeGe and the boys would have been proud.

When I got home, above the laundry chute in the bathroom, I found a container with Ace bandages in it. While I watched TV with my mom in the living room, I began wrapping my legs with some of the bandages. My mom asked me why I was doing it, and I couldn't give her a reason. I didn't have a reason. I was just goofing around. Sometimes, when you're acting several years above your age outside the house, when you get home, you just want to be a kid again. I didn't have to be cool once I was home.

But the next morning, I was back to acting above my age. Mom had to head over to the shop to get things ready for the opening on Monday. I was wishing I could fast‐forward to get to the evening already. I wanted to put my uniform on right then and step under the lights at Taggart Stadium like the Razzano men before me. Dad played football there. So did Uncle Bob and Uncle Johnny. Uncle Rick was a legend in New Castle, and he went on to play in the Super Bowl for the Cincinnati Bengals. And Uncle Tony, who started the Razzano family football legacy, became known as a legendary NFL scout for the San Francisco 49ers who helped them decide to draft a guy named Joe Montana.

The Razzano name is synonymous with football in New Castle. So much so that the number 42 is retired. You cannot wear it unless your last name is Razzano. Tonight was going to be the first night I would wear number 42 and take my first step toward continuing the legacy. The hours left to pass until then seemed like a lifetime.

I called up my friend Todd, whom we lovingly called Dopey. He was home with his brother Brock. We hung out, wrestled around with one another for a little bit to blow off some steam, and then Todd wanted to go back in and take it easy before the night's game. So I walked to Z's house, the kid who'd been playing with the Ouija board. His parents were home, so we decided to go through the woods to get back to my house where we could hang out and be left alone.

Along the way, we ran into a few ninth graders who had been riding their quad motorbikes along the trails. They had stopped and were doing something odd. They had their faces pressed down close to the front of the seat of their bikes. When we asked them what they were doing, they told us they were huffing gasoline. When you sniff gas like they were, they said it can make you feel as if you've been drinking alcohol.

We knew who the kids were, but we didn't know them that well. They weren't bothering anyone; they had just gone into the woods, away from prying eyes, to have some fun. These were the type of kids who would listen to heavy metal, music that creeped me out, to be honest.

We kept walking over to my house because I knew we could hang out without adult supervision. When we got there, Z said he had a pack of cigarettes, but he didn't have a lighter. So, I ran in the house and grabbed a pack of matches. The match pack was black with white writing; it said Dapper Dan Appecelli, City Council. I looked on the clock of the microwave; it was now 1:53 p.m.

Z and I walked into my cinder‐block garage that didn't have any cars in it. The house was so small so we used the garage to store as many things as possible. Dad kept some of his old restaurant equipment in there. He also had two huge glass jugs that we used to store the wine he would make. Just the week before, we'd cleared out a few things to make room, including a stash of fireworks from the Fourth of July. But the gas‐powered lawn mower was still there, along with a metal gas can.

With nothing to do and all day to do it, Z and I had the idea to try sniffing gas ourselves. We closed the garage door for privacy from the neighbors and opened the gas tank cap at the bottom of the mower. Z lay down on the ground first and tried it. I sat on an old kitchen chair with the gallon gas can, so we were both sniffing gas. At first, I was just peeking up to see if he was really doing it. After a few minutes, he asked if we could switch spots and I agreed.

I put down the gas can I was using and laid down some newspaper because I didn't want to get my blue Gregal Construction team baseball jacket and white sweatpants dirty on the garage floor. Sniffing the fumes made me feel sleepy. I drifted in and out of consciousness. And even though I've replayed this scene over in my mind a million times, I'm not exactly sure what happened next. But when I came to, I frantically jumped to my feet, engulfed in flames! I was a ball of fire, literally! At the time, I didn't know how it started, all I knew was I had to get out of there alive.

2On Fire!

When you grow up Catholic, you have this idea in your head of what hell might be like. And now, I found myself in my own personal hell, my body in flames, screaming, desperately trying to get out of the garage. A moment of sheer terror, a living nightmare.

I was captured by fire, surrounded by an inferno of sweltering heat that was eating me alive. The pain was so intense that my mind still will not allow me to relive it. I remember the crackling of the red flames as they were engulfing my clothes, consuming my life. As I fought to escape, every second changed me; I would never be the same. I couldn't have been on fire for that long. Maybe 30 seconds? A minute? But it felt like an eternity.

A few hours earlier, I was a child getting ready for a football game. Now I was fighting the most intense battle of my life. To some degree, each of us goes through a transformation at about the age of 12. Our voices change, we grow, we get stronger and more mature in so many ways. But this transformation, this moment, was impossible to imagine. It was a lesson in how fragile life can be.

My friend Z ran out of the garage through the side door, and it closed behind him. I tried following him out, but I couldn't get the door open. Trying to get some leverage, I leaned up against those huge glass jugs that my father usually had filled with homemade wine. The heat from the flames on my body was so intense, the jugs shattered.

I could hear the fire crackling as I was trying to put it out with my hands, but I couldn't escape the inferno. I cried out with a bloodcurdling scream as I fought to escape the garage. The intensity of the heat was melting me. I knew I didn't have long; it was a panic like no other. My left hand was so hot, I put it inside my jacket pocket and the clothing immediately melted around it. I pulled it out and shook off the flames, desperately pushing on the door to open.

With my right hand on the doorknob and my left braced against the window, I pushed and pushed at the door, frantically screaming, trying to free myself. The heat from my left hand forged an imprint on the glass. The harder I pushed at the door, the less I could move it, until finally, I realized that I had to pull the door open.

Once I made it outside, the fresh air only gave the fire new life and more intensity. It was then that I saw the face of an angel. Her name was Mary. Mary Ryan was a woman older than my mom who lived two doors down from us that we didn't know too well. She was the first to see me.

Mary had heard the screaming in my garage. As I watched her making her way to our yard, I felt a strange calm come over me, like the presence of a hand on your shoulder when you can't do anything but cry. It gave me peace under fire, literally.

As loud as she could, Mary yelled, “Rooooooo‐wuhllll‐llllah,” finding three syllables in a one syllable word in a way that only a Western Pennsylvanian can. And so, I rolled.

Soon, another Mary appeared. Mary Hartman and her husband, Henry, lived right next door. Mary Hartman had heard my screams as well and yelled to her husband that someone was on fire outside and to come quickly.

Henry Hartman was a retired executive at Johnson Bronze, a big local factory. He ran outside and into his garage, where he grabbed an army blanket and darted toward me. With no concern for himself or his well‐being, he took the blanket and covered me in it as I continued to roll myself along the ground. Once Henry got the blanket around me, the flames finally disappeared. There I was on my back lying in my yard, charred from head to toe, stunned, trying to catch my breath and process what had just happened.

Z was hysterical, squealing, yelling at me, “Don't tell anyone what happened! Don't tell!” I didn't know what he meant. I thought he was talking about us sniffing gas. I couldn't begin to think about how the fire started. But now I know that's what he was talking about. “Leave him alone,” Mr. Hartman said, calmly and firmly. “Go stand in the alley.”

I was breathing rapidly as I lay there in the grass, cocooned in the blanket, looking up at the crisp blue sky, once again feeling the cool autumn breeze touch my face. I didn't know what my future might hold, but I was thankful that the intensity of the fire had ceased. It was at this moment that I met the eyes of Henry Hartman.

“Are you okay?” he said as steadily as he could.

“Yeah …,” I said. “I think I'm okay.”

But I knew I wasn't. I could see the smoke still rising from underneath the blanket. I could smell the fire. I knew it was really bad. “Am I going to die?” I asked Mr. Hartman. “Oh, no. No. No. You are not going to die,” he said. I believed him. After a pause, I asked Mr. Hartman the next question that came to mind. “Will I be able to play in the football game tonight?”

“Oh … I think we're gonna have to get you better before you can go and play football again,” Mr. Hartman said.

He kept speaking to me as the Marys were talking loudly to each other. After calling 911, they were anxiously trying to figure out where to reach my parents. My mom was at the new coffee shop getting ready for the grand opening on Monday. The trouble was no one knew the number of the new shop. Before cell phones, texting, and email, delivering a message to someone in 1987 was a much greater challenge.

I was always good with numbers, so I spouted off the phone number to the coffee shop as I continued to lie there with my skin smoldering underneath the blanket. When the phone rang at the coffee shop, they must have been surprised. Who would be calling? The shop wasn't even open for business yet. They had no idea that they were about to receive a call that would change all of our lives.

The person who answered heard someone frantically yelling that a boy was burned before they hung up. At first, they thought it was probably a prank. My mother overheard the call as she stirred a big pot of wedding soup. A chill ran over her body, a certain intuition that she can't explain. Mary Ryan would then call Ricky's Hair Salon, my mother's old job, looking for her. The hair salon relayed the message to my mom that I was badly burned. In that moment, her heart began to pound as she raced to the hospital.

The neighbors also tracked down Dad, who was at his house with his girlfriend and their children. His girlfriend answered the phone and immediately handed it to him. Dad ran out the door. Before he could even gather the full story, he jumped into his car and sped to the house.

John Presjnar, the first ambulance driver to reach the house, ran across the lawn and saw me rolled up in Mr. Hartman's blanket. When he arrived, all he could see was my face, untouched by the fire.

“Are you okay?” John asked.

“Yeah, I think I'm okay,” I said.

“Do you mind if I take a look under the blanket?” he asked.

“No, go right ahead,” I said.

When he looked under the blanket, all he saw was the remains of my charred clothes and third‐degree burns all over my body. Imagine if you poured hot white wax on your skin. That's what it looked and felt like. My body was completely white from the third‐degree burns.

“Oh, my!” John said when he looked under the blanket. Not wasting a moment, he sprinted to the ambulance to grab some IV bags. But where could he insert the IV? Unable to locate any veins on my charred arms, John inserted the IV directly into my neck. Burn victims often suffer and sometimes die from intense dehydration. Without your skin, your body can't retain any of its fluids. Had John not gotten those fluids into me right away, the burns would have killed me. They still probably should have, but somehow, Henry Hartman, two Marys, and a John gave me a chance to live.

Lying on the lawn, I imagined this is what it must have felt like to be on a battlefield. There was chaos all around. People screaming at one another. Sirens. Medics acting with a life‐or‐death urgency. The rest of the area seemed still except for the disorienting chaos swirling around me.

The paramedics lifted me onto a gurney, and I could hear the liquids leaving my body. As fast as the IV was putting fluid into me, the liquids were permeating my charred skin. It sounded as if someone had poured a bucket of water on the ground—a sound that will stay with me forever.

The police and fire department had arrived as well, and time was of the essence. They had to get me to the hospital. Tommy “Duck,” a good friend of my father's, was a fireman. His son was my good friend. I had known Duck all my life. If you were to draw a picture of a tough man, you would draw Duck. And he always had something funny to say. But that day, he couldn't say anything. One of the toughest men I had ever known had tears in his eyes. He could barely look at me. And that was the first time I really knew how bad it was. I could see the pain on his face.