Although Corky deceived me on ad creative, she was integral with her persistence of low rates and was the first person I ever heard coin the term, “BOS”. She constantly referred to BetOnSports as BOS and the term would eventually stick. Prior to BetOnSports and BOS they were known as the North American Sports Betting Company or NASCO. Claude loved that name.
Now I had the Rome show, Fox Sports, and just about every major local radio station ready for my pending presentation that I would reveal in my upcoming trip to Costa Rica in May of 2001. I presented to Claude my strategy of focusing on national radio advertising and supporting it with local programming. I flew down to Costa Rica and stayed at the same three bedroom apartment I was at before with Tom and DD. This time when I came to the airport there was Tom with a big grin waiting for me with one of the Tico employees driving. Tom was a super friend and a great salesman. He supplied me with plenty of first hand information from customers after I had left my first trip to Costa Rica which only lasted until early September of 2000.
Unfortunately, Tom a 45 year old worn out party veteran was suffering from the Costa Rican nightlife. On our last trip we often went out drinking and smoking some of Costa Rica’s finest. This time I was stunned to see Tom in really bad shape. He was throwing up at the office, falling down in the office. It was a bad situation. Meanwhile Claude and Shaun ignored the problem Tom was having as an employee. According to Shaun, Tom was not needed until the start of football season. This annoyed me because the sales employees were flown into Costa Rica with the agreement that when their services were completed they would be flown home upon their request when they completed the season. Tom was certainly entitled to this respect considering he was one of the finest salesmen in the office bringing in millions of dollars in new accounts. I was appalled by Shaun’s response to the problem when I brought it up.
On top of Tom's health problems neither he nor DD had much money considering the simple wages they earned. An airplane ticket home would cost them over a week's worth of work. An argument could be made that Tom didn’t help matters by spending all of his money on booze but that wasn’t true. Tom was actually very frugal in spending money and would usually buy a couple of small bottles of guaro or vodka and chug them without the benefit of a mixer from the local discount stores on the lowest floor of the Mall San Pablo. So he was not paying bar prices by any means and if he did go out to the bars he would spend nothing more than a few thousand colones or $10 – 20 at most making sure he chugged a few beers before heading out and usually did the brown paper bag walk en route to the bars. DD did her best to save by cooking at home and managing the dollars so they could buy a couple of plane tickets back home. But the reality that faced them at home was they would have no money to get an apartment, car, or anything else due to their dilapidated funds. The choice for Tom and DD was let Tom kill himself with booze or fly back home and than once they got home it's live with the parents or be homeless. Watching the Ripner’s neglect this responsibility sickened me.
I was making decent money and was due a lot more plus I had a nice comfortable home situation back in Torrance, California with my lovely girlfriend Odinga, her son, Deron whom I took on the fatherly role and our family pet, my personal pride and joy “Sparky” a Halloween born mutt that came out of an alley exactly 1 block away from where the 1992 LA riots in South Central Los Angeles erupted. She has the softest fur with a lovable friendly demeanor that endeared her to all the dogs and people in the neighborhood. Meanwhile back to reality in Costa Rica, Tom was in bad shape. I couldn’t stand seeing him drink himself to death anymore. I took on the responsibility of getting Tom and DD two tickets to Arizona so they would have enough money to get an apartment when they got home.
I knew Tom and DD were going to be taking off a day before me in the spring of 2001. I figured it’s time to go out with a bang! Tom and I ended up starting out at the All-Star Cafe, where Tom faded fast and opted out with an early night. He was in horrible shape and just couldn't handle one more drink. Since Tom couldn’t hold up his end of the bargain with the drinking, carousing and playing around I pledged to him that night I would honor him by pulling double time. This was probably the night that the legend of Blacksaw took full flight. I had been nicknamed Hacksaw during the 2000 football season and during the spring Doogie and Joel started calling me Blacksaw for my love of women. My girlfriend was born in Zaire with a deep dark skin tone and I love the Williams sisters in tennis, especially Serena. More times than I can count while having sex I fantasized about Serena Williams. Thank you Serena and sorry to any women I have offended.
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