Page 40 - FOP March 2017 Newsletter

HONORING CONTINUED FROM PAGE 39
Brother Rice Assistant Wrestling Coach Jan Murzyn, a 9th District o cer, with Scott.
It was Jake who initiated the friendship during fresh- man orientation by approaching Scott. They initially be- came lunch-table friends, and it kind of grew from there. “We were weird kids,” Scott said of their kinship.
Denise recalled how even as freshmen, Scott and Jake talked about how they were going to take on the world. Jake would be the brains and Scott would be the brawn. Scott first learned about Jake’s scholastic aptitude by sit- ting next to him in a couple of classes.
“I never would have passed my computer class without him,” Scott added.
Leo shared that what impressed him most about Jake was his drive to learn. “Jake wanted to know everything, and he would look it up to find out exactly if he was curi-
ous,” Leo revealed.
Murzyn once tried to recruit Jake to join Scott on the
wrestling team. He even tried his best motivational speech one day at the lunch table, but Jake knew his calling.
“He told me, ‘You see this head? I have a brain and I have to protect that brain,’” Murzyn told. “He told me this on numerous occasions.”
Just before Christmas break in 2015, Jake collapsed in school. A few weeks later, before a Friday night match against Mount Carmel High School, Scott received a text message from Jake.
“He was telling me, ‘You know why I seemed sick the other day? I was diagnosed with leukemia,’” Scott re- counted. “He seemed very upbeat. He was sending me statistics of the survival rates.”
The exchange of text messages continued. Scott would joke about how he was failing lunch without Jake. Jake would ask about the wrestling team. Scott confided that the team wasn’t tough enough. He disclosed that Murzyn would remind him that no one is born tough, that you have to learn to be tough along the way.
On Feb. 29, 2016, Jake was outside the Brother Rice at- tendance office on what would be his last day of school. Murzyn saw him and stopped to ask how he was doing and remembered his reply: “He said, ‘I’m learning to be tough, coach.’”
When duty calls
Toughness might be one of the great learning events from the Jake-Scott-Coach/Officer Murzyn-Denise/
40 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ MARCH 2017