Tony Boles Tony Boles ( born ) is a retired professional American football running back and kick returner who was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League ( NFL ) . After starring for the Michigan Wolverines football , where he once led the Big Ten Conference in rushing , he went on to a scandal ridden life . His college football career was ended prematurely due to a knee injury . He has been sentenced to prison multiple times and placed in homes for addicts due to cocaine abuse . Youth . Although Boles was born in Thomasville , Georgia and his family settled in Westland , Michigan when he was ten years old . He grew up in a predominately white neighborhood where he was one of only four African American s in the entire student body at John Glenn High School . He had also attended Marshall Junior High School . He took a Caucasian woman to the high school prom , but was not allowed to enter her home . She had to pick him up for the prom . College . Boles starred for coach Bo Schembechler at the University of Michigan where he was twice named All - Big Ten on repeat conference champions in 1988 and 1989 and named the team most valuable player for the 1989 NCAA Division I - A football season . These were Schembechler ' s final two seasons at Michigan . With Boles , the team won the January 1 , 1989 Rose Bowl , but with him on the sidelines they lost the January 1 , 1990 contest . Boles shared the 1988 Big Ten rushing title with Anthony Thompson . Boles won the title for conference games only , while Thompson won the title for all games played . As a sophomore in 1988 , he rushed for , but during his junior season he suffered a season ending knee injury . Entering the final game before his injury he had accumulated rushing in nine games on 130 rushes , Schembechler was starting to support his Heisman Trophy candidacy : During the 1989 season , his carries were somewhat limited due to a pinched nerve . He was seriously injured late in the 1989 season and had arthroscopic surgery on his knee , while Leroy Hoard replaced him for the final 2 . 5 games . In 1990 , Boles attempted a senior season comeback as a wide receiver to no avail . Boles compiled 10 100 - yard games while rushing for in two years at Michigan . In addition to playing running back , Boles excelled as a kick returner where he accumulated and a touchdown on 25 returns for a per return average . In 1990 , Jon Vaughn and Ricky Powers carried the load at tailback in his place . In retrospect , Boles sometimes regrets not having gone to one of the historically black colleges and universities . Before the injury he had been projected as a first round draft pick . After the injury , he dropped out of school fell onto hard times . He dropped out of classes because he says " didn ' t want to be crutching around campus " and he eventually stopped rehabbing his knee and became irregular with his workouts . Professional career . Boles , who was represented by agent Thom Darden , was drafted in the eleventh round of the 1991 NFL Draft with the 291st overall selection by the Dallas Cowboys as part of Jimmy Johnson ' s rebuilding efforts . He was part of a Cowboy draft class that included three first round selections ( Russell Maryland , Alvin Harper , and Kelvin Pritchett ) , eleven picks in the first four rounds and eighteen overall selections . Boles was assigned rookie initiation duties of washing Emmitt Smith ' s Pathfinder , but instead of washing the car disappeared with it for two days while binge ing . He eventually tested positive and was released by the Cowboys . The Cowboys placed him on the reserve non - football injury list in August 1991 . He then played a season with the San Antonio Riders of the World League of American Football for most of a season until he got mixed up in criminal activity . At first , he mysteriously disappeared from practice on a day of random drug testing . Before the disappearance , his World League performance had enabled Boles to get signed as a free agent by the Cowboys in early April 1992 , but by June the team released him . Life after football . On November 11 , 1994 , Boles was arrested on charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and petty theft and wound up in jail in Naples , Florida . Boles discovered at age 27 that he had not been reared by his biological father . He soon thereafter started experimenting with cocaine . After football ended , he worked various jobs such as construction and working at a grocery store . He then started selling drugs and then using his product . This led him to a series of arrests , prison stays , and homeless periods . In 2003 , two former teammates tracked him down and set him up with a job at a car wash . However , Boles fell back into his criminal ways . Boles was convicted of robbing an elderly couple and was sentenced to three to fifteen years in prison . He was released into a work program . He also found himself at the Elmhurst Home , Inc . substance abuse treatment center in 2006 . The residential treatment center has since 1972 been used to host about 100 recovering addicts at a time providing Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meeting places , military style roll call s , daily tasks , and progress logs . Physically , in 2006 , Boles was described as starting to gray , missing two top front teeth and suffering from an arthritic knee . He stood and . He had a 21 - year - old daughter and kept in touch with his mother . His stepfather had died in 1994 . Boles was arrested in Ypsilanti , Michigan on September 9 , 2007 and pled guilty to one count of receiving and concealing stolen property . He was sentenced to serve two to five years in prison for receiving and concealing stolen property in violation of his parole in Washtenaw County Circuit Court . He had previously served six months in prison for unarmed robbery before he was paroled in 2005 . Boles ' most recent infraction occurred when with an outstanding warrant , he provided a false name to officers investigating why he was blocking traffic with a car they would find out had been stolen from Detroit , Michigan . He had been attempting to converse with sidewalk pedestrians while purchasing drugs .