Tony Boles

Youth

Although Boles was born in Thomasville, Georgia and his family settled in Westland, Michigan when he was ten years old. He grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood where he was one of only four African Americans in the entire student body at John Glenn High School. He had also attended Marshall Junior High School. He took a Caucasian woman to the high school prom, but was not allowed to enter her home. She had to pick him up for the prom.

College

Boles starred for coach Bo Schembechler at the University of Michigan where he was twice named All-Big Ten on repeat conference champions in 1988 and 1989 and named the team most valuable player for the 1989 NCAA Division I-A football season. These were Schembechler's final two seasons at Michigan. With Boles, the team won the January 1, 1989 Rose Bowl, but with him on the sidelines they lost the January 1, 1990 contest. Boles shared the 1988 Big Ten rushing title with Anthony Thompson. Boles won the title for conference games only, while Thompson won the title for all games played. As a sophomore in 1988, he rushed for 1,408 yards (1,287 m), but during his junior season he suffered a season ending knee injury. Entering the final game before his injury he had accumulated 822 yards (752 m) rushing in nine games on 130 rushes, Schembechler was starting to support his Heisman Trophy candidacy:

During the 1989 season, his carries were somewhat limited due to a pinched nerve. He was seriously injured late in the 1989 season and had arthroscopic surgery on his knee, while Leroy Hoard replaced him for the final 2.5 games. In 1990, Boles attempted a senior season comeback as a wide receiver to no avail. Boles compiled 10 100-yard games while rushing for 2,247 yards (2,055 m) in two years at Michigan. In addition to playing running back, Boles excelled as a kick returner where he accumulated 639 yards (584 m) and a touchdown on 25 returns for a 25.6 yards (23.4 m) per return average. In 1990, Jon Vaughn and Ricky Powers carried the load at tailback in his place. In retrospect, Boles sometimes regrets not having gone to one of the historically black colleges and universities. Before the injury he had been projected as a first round draft pick. After the injury, he dropped out of school fell onto hard times. He dropped out of classes because he says "didn't want to be crutching around campus" and he eventually stopped rehabbing his knee and became irregular with his workouts.

Professional career

Boles, who was represented by agent Thom Darden, was drafted in the eleventh round of the 1991 NFL Draft with the 291st overall selection by the Dallas Cowboys as part of Jimmy Johnson's rebuilding efforts. He was part of a Cowboy draft class that included three first round selections (Russell Maryland, Alvin Harper, and Kelvin Pritchett), eleven picks in the first four rounds and eighteen overall selections. Boles was assigned rookie initiation duties of washing Emmitt Smith's Pathfinder, but instead of washing the car disappeared with it for two days while bingeing. He eventually tested positive and was released by the Cowboys. The Cowboys placed him on the reserve non-football injury list in August 1991. He then played a season with the San Antonio Riders of the World League of American Football for most of a season until he got mixed up in criminal activity. At first, he mysteriously disappeared from practice on a day of random drug testing. Before the disappearance, his World League performance had enabled Boles to get signed as a free agent by the Cowboys in early April 1992, but by June the team released him.

Life after football

On November 11, 1994, Boles was arrested on charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and petty theft and wound up in jail in Naples, Florida.

Boles discovered at age 27 that he had not been reared by his biological father. He soon thereafter started using cocaine. After football ended, he worked various jobs such as construction and working at a grocery store. He then started selling drugs and then using his product. This led him to a series of arrests, prison stays, and homeless periods. In 2003, two former teammates tracked him down and set him up with a job at a car wash. However, Boles fell back into his criminal ways. Boles was convicted of robbing an elderly couple and was sentenced to three to fifteen years in prison. He was released into a work program. He also found himself at the Elmhurst Home, Inc. substance abuse treatment center in 2006. The residential treatment center has since 1972 been used to host about 100 recovering addicts at a time providing Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meeting places, military-style roll calls, daily tasks, and progress logs.

Physically, in 2006, Boles was described as starting to gray, missing two top front teeth and suffering from an arthritic knee. He stood 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) and 190 pounds (86 kg; 14 st). He had a 21-year-old daughter and kept in touch with his mother. His stepfather had died in 1994.

Boles was arrested in Ypsilanti, Michigan on September 9, 2007 and pleaded guilty to one count of receiving and concealing stolen property. He was sentenced to serve two to five years in prison for receiving and concealing stolen property in violation of his parole in Washtenaw County Circuit Court. He had previously served six months in prison for unarmed robbery before he was paroled in 2005. Boles' most recent infraction occurred when with an outstanding warrant, he provided a false name to officers investigating why he was blocking traffic with a car they would find out had been stolen from Detroit, Michigan. He had been attempting to converse with sidewalk pedestrians while purchasing drugs. Boles lost his son, Christopher, to a traffic accident at the age of 17 in February 2016.