Catastrophic
College phenom running back Tyler Bentley is the ultimate success story. The son of a single mother from a wayward stretch of highway in Western Wyoming, he heads to Midwestern football powerhouse Ohio Tech and
becomes a star, MVP of the Centennial Bowl, runner-up to the Heisman Trophy.
He is also the ultimate fall from grace story when a freak play occurs, leaving his knee shattered.
Seeing an opportunity, the SynTronic medical corporation convinces Tyler to use their newly-designed KnightRunner knee replacement, promising him that he'll be back on the field long before the upcoming season. Everything they promise comes true up until the product malfunctions, costing Tyler his career and his leg.
Now, leaning on the help of his one-time teacher Shane Laszlo, Tyler must take his battle from the gridiron to the courtroom. Laszlo, an Ohio Tech alum himself just a year removed from law school, has his own score to settle with SynTronic, an incident occuring years before with repercussions far greater than the loss of a limb.
Together, they will go into the biggest case Ohio has ever seen…
Side Commentary
This is a story that I originally started before law school, but was forced to put aside. Fast forward five years and I was able to dust it off and revamp the whole thing, which really turned out to be a lot of fun to write.
Two things I should mention here, just to be clear…(1) Ohio Tech is NOT a stand-in for Ohio State. It is a fictitious school, but I wanted the story to be set in the football-crazed rust belt, to add a little gravitas to the tale. (2) I am fully aware that I cut a couple of small corners on the legal/courtroom aspects. This was deliberate. As
entertaining as the legal realm can be at times, it can also be every bit as
boring. I just chose to cut those parts out here.
