Our Story

In 1980, as a rookie police office for the city of Altoona, Pennsylvania, Rocco Scalzi made a split second decision during a hostage incident where an individual threatened his life with a shotgun. Rocco's bullet struck a young person by mistake leaving the victim paralyzed for life. Three years after the shooting, Rocco entered a program for burned-out police officers after looking at the end of his own gun.

After this experience, Rocco traveled the country for six years helping to develop emotional fitness programs in law enforcement. Two startling statistics inspired his work:
  • more police officers each year were killed by their own guns than were killed in the line of duty
  • the average life expectancy of a retired cop was less than six years
After appearing on the Geraldo Riveria television special entitled, “Cop Killers and Killer Cops,” in 1989, Rocco was invited to speak to high school students about his work in law enforcement.

Message to Students

Rocco's reason for accepting the invitation to speak to high school students almost twenty years ago was the result of a school assembly program he attended as an elementary student in 1965. Watching Pennsylvania State Police officers marching in uniform, riding motorcycles and horseback, shooting balloons out of the sky, and speaking about the work of a police officer, Rocco learned the power of a dream. Rocco's message to students in 1989 focused on dreams, goals, overcoming obstacles, and the importance of developing a never give up attitude. Today, nearly 2 decades later, his message to students is the same.

In 1990, Rocco founded the Beating the Odds Foundation. To kick off this inspirational charity, he brought 15,000 students to Three Rivers Stadium, then-home of the Pittsburgh Steelers, to hear how others reached their dreams and goals despite the obstacles they faced. The first two individuals who joined Rocco that day remain an important part of the Beating the Odds Foundation. Former Pittsburgh Steeler great and Vietnam War hero Rocky Bleier and Vietnam War hero Bob Wieland continue to inspire students and adults to never give up.



Leigh Steinberg's Beating the Odds Quarterback Club

Through his generosity and concern for America's youth, sports attorney Leigh Steinberg created the Leigh Steinberg Beating the Odds Quarterback Club. Steinberg was the real life inspiration of the sports agent from the film Jerry Maguire. The Quarterback Club consists of “quarterbacks of life,” whose stories help students beginning in the fourth grade achieve success in school and in life. This program, through its mentoring strategies (instruction, role playing, Quarterbacks of Life Mentor stories, and curriculum integration), teaches kids that success in school and in life is attained most often by kids who have dreams, have high self-esteem, make caring and responsible decisions, accept and provide team support, and possess a positive mental attitude and a never give up state of mind - the very elements that are the goal posts of the Quarterbacks of Life Mentoring Program.