Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 3, 1990 TAG: 9005040636
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: W-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
That was the end of a senior season in which he had been selected an All-Timesland and second-team All-Group AA linebacker. He was a main force on the Spartans' 1986 team that lost to perennial power Hampton in the Group AAA championship game.
Wills had one problem: He couldn't read what was written on his diploma. In fact, he couldn't read anything more difficult than a book written for a kindergarten-age child. Wills has dyslexia, which impairs a person's ability to read.
Because of this, Wills is down and out. He has had a hard time holding a job and has contemplated suicide.
Wills has hopped a fence and sat in a darkened Salem football stadium late at night to think about his glory days and ponder his fate. For Wills, there is no cheering there anymore. Now, he hopes his story can help someone with a similar problem while he tries to put his life back together.
Recently, Wills dined in a local restaurant as a guest while telling his story. He had two pennies in his pocket, owned a 1968 Volkswagen that hadn't passed inspection and was living in a church, where he did odd jobs in return for room and board.
Wills' residence is the House of Prayer in Salem. "The pastor has been real nice. He found out I had been sleeping in my car, so he lets me work around the church . . . clean it up after services. That way, I won't lose my dignity. I've always been a proud person," Wills said.
It has been a tough three years. Wills nearly landed in jail because he couldn't read. He lost jobs when employers discovered his problem. He was refused entry into the military because of his disability.
"Sometimes when it gets bad, you think for a moment to end it all. It's so depressing. The friends you graduated with [from Salem] go to college and have jobs. And you keep getting deeper and deeper," he said.
Wills was in learning disability classes at Salem, but he received a diploma by faking and cheating his way past exams and class projects. He landed jobs in the same manner. He hid that he had a reading problem until earlier this winter, when he struggled to read a book to his young nephew, Jonathan.
Wills realized then what his life had become. Now he has a new job and is seeking help, trying to learn to read so he can put his life in order.
Wills began work in March at Tread Corp., which makes mining equipment. Tom Watts, the owner, and Patty Watts, his wife, are helping Wills on the road back. Patty Watts, a reading specialist in Roanoke schools, tutors Wills each weekend.
The Watts' daughters, Kim and Kelly, were two of Wills' best friends at Salem. He spent many hours at the Watts house, yet Patty Watts says the family never realized there was a problem. She only wishes Wills had asked for her help then, especially since she deals with students who have reading disorders.
Wills' hope is to return to Virginia Western Community College, where he took classes for four weeks until his disorder caught up with him.
"Larry said, `Ms. Watts, I want to go to school later.' I said, `We'll just keep going and get you there,' " she said.
Wills once lost a new car because he couldn't keep jobs long enough to make the payments. "Even though I had good jobs, I had no future because I never knew when I'd lose the jobs when people found out I couldn't read," Wills said.
Wills was in line for a promotion when he worked for Living Well Fitness Center in Danville. His boss decided Wills was ready to go to work in Richmond at a better job. "He was dictating a letter to me as a recommendation when he discovered I couldn't write," Wills said. "He said we'd do it later. Then, a couple of days later, he told me I wasn't needed."
So how did Wills get by in school?
"I always gave good effort. If people talked to me, I could understand what they'd say. I just couldn't write it down or read it," he said.
"The teachers passed me because I gave a good effort. Instead of giving me a D, it would have been better to give me an F. In the long run, you pay for it the rest of your life."
He also cheated. "I looked on people's papers and made cheat sheets [for tests]," Wills said.
If he had a report to do, it was simple. "I'd copy stuff out of encyclopedias. Then I'd get people to read the material out loud to me. In five or six times, I could memorize it and give the report orally in class."
Whenever he had reading assignments, Wills would turn on his charm. "I'd get girlfriends to read to me. I'd joke with them and say I was lazy or I wanted to spend time with them," he explained.
"After I graduated, I'd joke with friends about my diploma. I'd say the name should read, `Larry Wills and Associates.' I cheated off everybody."
In short, Wills was the ultimate con man.
"He was beyond getting help," Patty Watts said. "Larry was scared to death that people would find out. He'd be embarrassed. So the easiest thing to do was to hide it. People [with dyslexia] have a lot of ways to hide it; they're creative."
Salem football coach Willis White knew something was wrong with Wills, but he never dreamed there was such an enormous problem. "I suspected he was just snaking his way through. But, of course, he never would admit it to me."
Although Wills makes conversation easily, he shied away from the media. "I told a reporter after one playoff game I didn't want to talk. I hated it when Channel 7 [WDBJ] came to the field. It would disturb practice. The only thing I had [going for me] was football. I didn't want anyone messing it up."
He was unable to read accounts of Salem games in the papers. "I'd look for my picture and then I'd know I was in the story," he said.
During his toughest times, Wills always turned to football. Wills first told his story several weeks ago, and he was concerned about what his football coaches at Salem would think of him.
"I went to see [assistant coach Billy] Miles; he had [taught] me in class," Wills said. "He always said the fastest way to lose your respect is by cheating. I asked him if I had lost his respect. He said no because I was getting help. Even though I don't play for him anymore, his respect means a lot."
Football never came hard for Wills, but even then he had to fudge at times.
"As a linebacker, I could get by because all you had to do was get the guy with the ball," Wills said. "Coach White had a numbers system [for telling players where they were supposed to be], and I never had trouble with numbers.
"One time, though, they tried to make me a tight end. That position required a playbook. I messed up on purpose so they wouldn't make me a tight end."
After Salem, Wills tried to enlist in the military. He got past the first set of tests because he found out the answers and copied them before he took it. He flunked the second test and failed to get into the service.
When he went to Virginia Western, Wills still didn't realize how enormous his problem was. He signed up for English, math and writing. "Then I started to realize my reading [skill] was terrible. My spelling was even worse. The teachers started to sense something was wrong.
"I didn't have a lot of close friends like I had at Salem, and people didn't know me from the football team. I got scared and I quit after four weeks."
Since then, Wills' life has been on a down cycle. He never was able to open a checking account because he couldn't fill out the necessary papers. When he bought a car, his father filled out the papers.
Wills' closest touch with disaster came when he was pulled over by a policeman for a traffic violation. He had an expired license and a fake identification that he used in bars.
"I panicked and gave him the fake ID," Wills said. "I had to sign for the ticket, but I didn't have the ID and I couldn't spell the name correctly. The policeman suspected something.
"I wasn't sentenced - I had to do some community hours - but I could have gone to jail for five years. That would have been terrible . . . to go to jail because you can't read."
Down on his luck, Wills got discouraged. He sneaked into the Salem football stadium at night just to remember the good times of playing in front of a packed house and winning its way into the state championship game. Wills was a key to the Spartans' success.
"In football, I was somebody," Wills said. "But once I left that stadium, I went back to being a nobody again.
"When you can't hold a job, everybody starts to think you're a bum. It's not that you don't want to work. I never felt sorry for myself. It's just . . . what to do?"
Wills would see public-service announcements on TV about people with reading disabilities and start to call for help, but invariably would not.
He thought about going public last year when the Washington Redskins' Dexter Manley admitted to the same problem. Again, he did not.
Then came the moment that made him realize it was time to do something about his problem.
"I had trouble reading a book to my nephew in February. It was a kindergarten book, but it was the first one I ever read from cover-to-cover," Wills said.
"Then I went into the bathroom and began to cry. I knew I needed help."
He doesn't blame Salem High and says the school, especially Principal John Hall, has cooperated in providing help.
"I don't think shock is the right word," said Hall when asked about his reaction to hearing Wills' story. "I knew he had some reading disabilities, but not to this extent."
Hall, who was assistant principal at Salem when Wills was in school, says the Salem School Board has directed the school's administration to find out how Wills' problem was allowed to happen and to prevent it from happening to other students.
"I won't say what frequency it happens," Hall said. "I'm sure people in school [teaching and administration] hope it doesn't happen at all."
Before Wills went public with his story, White said he told Wills that what he had done to get through school was deceitful and just plain wrong. " `Now you've finally admitted it,' he said he told him. " `Do you want to do something about it?' He said yes.
"I asked if I could help, but he said he had already put himself in the right people's hands."
It hasn't been easy. Some members of Wills' family and friends think less of him, but he says you "can't live your life for other people. It's better to get it out in the open."
"I've taken pot shots from people. But I've also talked to some eighth-graders. I believe one of them was in the same situation as I was and he's going to get some help.
by CNB