Ten years behind bars. Twenty some convictions. Forty-four different prisons.

One life wasted.

``I served my time,'' Schlichter said. ``I got an enormous amount of time for what I did.''

He was once the quarterback of the future for the Indianapolis Colts, the Peyton Manning of his time. He was always the ultimate con man, a smooth talker who could separate people from their money faster than he could zip a football downfield.

Gambling was his addiction. Greed proved to be his downfall.

There was always one more score to make, one last bet to win back. He stole from friends and family alike, and there wasn't a credit card he didn't try to lift.

Twice he even conned his lawyer into smuggling a phone into prison so he could place bets from his cell.

His wife left with their two young daughters, but the urge to gamble was stronger than the urge to be a husband and father. He had issues with his father, but was in prison when he committed suicide.

``I don't know how to tell you how much pain we've had,'' his mother said a few years ago.

He's a free man now, living with his mother in Indiana and reporting to his probation officer on a regular basis.

He wants you to believe he has changed. Five months of therapy have helped, and he says he understands now the roots of the demons that drove him to swindle loved ones and strangers with an equal lack of remorse.

The Super Bowl is Sunday and he doesn't have a bet down. Not only that, he's organized a group to help compulsive gamblers like himself.

You want to believe him, but then you wonder. Is it all another act?

This is a guy, after all, who was once sent back to prison for betting on the Super Bowl and going to the racetrack at the same time he was getting treatment at the Compulsive Gambling Center in Baltimore.

``I'm not a bad guy,'' Schlichter insisted on the phone the other day. ``I just made some bad decisions.''

You want to believe he's a changed man. But try telling that to the Indiana man living on military disability who lost US