In a plot twist fit for a rather niche true-crime novel or a disappointing Lifetime movie, former University of Illinois quarterback and current Chicago policeman Christopher Pazan, finds himself embroiled in a bizarre scandal involving, of all things, baseball cards. Despite a resume dotted with high school football heroics and a promising stint on the college gridiron, the 41-year-old has now grabbed headlines not for his athletic prowess but for an alleged shoplifting escapade involving sports memorabilia.
This strange odyssey began on an otherwise uneventful Wednesday afternoon at a Meijer store on South Western Avenue in Evergreen Park. Here, according to Evergreen Park Police Sgt. Victor Watts, Pazan allegedly attempted to pull off a heist of $300 worth of baseball cards – as brazen perhaps as a blitzing linebacker – by stuffing them covertly into a yard waste bag. Although he dutifully paid for the bag itself, he somehow forgot the cards nestled within, leaving the store in a blur of ill-conceived larceny. Unfortunately for Pazan, the store’s vigilant security spotted his sleight of hand on surveillance footage, leading to his arrest and setting the stage for a legal drama no one saw coming.
On the force since 2015, Pazan has wielded not just the badge but also a cloak of reliability and dedication within the Chicago Police Department. However, the facade cracked last Wednesday, prompting the department to strip him of his police powers as he awaits an internal investigation. And while it’s not the kind of suspense he might’ve thrived on as a quarterback, he now finds his professional fate hanging in the balance.
Before this precipitous fall from grace, Pazan was a standout quarterback at Brother Rice High School, earning All-American honors. His arm strength carried him to the University of Illinois, where memories and dreams of sports glory served as a prelude to life’s harsher realities. Coaching at Illinois and St. Joseph’s College marked the stepping stones in his trajectory, culminating in a career shift toward law enforcement – a decision he previously described, in a moment of reflective sincerity, as a yearning “to serve in a different capacity.”
That yearning appeared noble at the time and seemed to continue as he joined the Chicago Enforcers, a team where law enforcement officers scrimmage beneath Friday night lights in a police football league.
Tales of his football exploits are juxtaposed starkly against more recent accounts of financial turmoil. Earning a respectable salary of $111,804 according to city records, Pazan’s financial path has nonetheless been rutted with potholes. The sands of once stable financial footing slipped with his ongoing divorce proceedings, synchronized with the alarming symphony of court documents and creditor demands. Notably, his previous attorney petitioned the court to secure over $5,800 in unpaid legal fees.
Furniture-encumbered with impending obligations, Pazan’s choice of allegedly pilfering ordinary baseball cards now seems paradoxical, bordering on quizzical. This alleged purloin assumes a more serious tenor in light of his ongoing home refinancing efforts aimed at biblically quenching a litigation-induced thirst for settlement funds.
But past entanglements with banks suggest a penchant for financial straits; a Fifth Third Bank indecipherably chasing him in circles over a $4,000 loan last year, and a $15,000 settlement paid to JPMorgan Chase, weigh heavily as testimonies to monetary misadventures that somehow elude or embrace him.
These monetary delinquencies raise eyebrows and checkboxes in city hiring guidelines, denting prospects for entrants encumbered with significant personal debt. Such measures intend to stave off susceptibility to corruption, monetary misfeasance, or impetus for acts like the alleged shoplifting that now embroils Pazan.
Charged with a misdemeanor count of retail theft, Pazan is slated for his court debut on June 23, penciled in amid legal narratives rich in irony and admonition. A fall from such a juxtaposition of sporting grace and civic duty into the shells of unpurchased baseball cards now beckons observers to ponder what might have been, had varsities, valor, and virtue remained uninterrupted by the whispers of financial despair.
In this somber saga, Pazan finds himself not just ensnared in legal repercussions, but ensconced within a debacle emblematic of life’s proverbial unexpected blitz, leaving many to watch as the curtain on his latest, and perhaps most public, dramatic chapter is drawn.
