Dads Of Lost Boaters Say Latest Details Are Inconsequential

To the fathers of two men who did not survive a Gulf fishing trip last month, details of a report released Monday about what happened on the boat are inconsequential.

Their sons are not coming home.

Will Bleakley, Marquis Cooper, Corey Smith and Nick Schuyler left on a fishing trip from Clearwater on Feb. 28. The boat capsized in the Gulf; Schuyler survived, but the three others were lost and are presumed dead. Cooper was an Oakland Raiders linebacker, Smith an NFL free agent, and Bleakley and Schuyler were former University of South Florida football players.

The Associated Press reported Monday afternoon that Schuyler told the Coast Guard one man "freaked out" and took off his life vest Feb. 28, the night the boat capsized.

Later that night, another became unruly and threw punches. He took off his life vest, dove down and never resurfaced. A third thought he saw land and decided to swim.

The men's names were redacted in the report.

"All that stuff doesn't matter," Bob Bleakley said in a telephone conversation Monday afternoon. "The main thing about this story is that, with Will's help, Nick's life was spared. Will almost made it, but he succumbed to the elements."

"If my son is gone, to me, it is irrelevant," said Bruce Cooper. "I heard waves were knocking them off, but that they helped each other get back on. It sounded like teamwork. You are telling me they were throwing punches. There are way too many stories to keep up with."

Bleakley said he had heard most, but not all, of what is in the report before.

"I had not heard about the punches," he said.

Shortly after Schuyler was found alive and clinging to the hull of the overturned 21-foot center-console boat, Bleakley spoke with him by telephone. Schuyler, he said, offered a different version of what happened - something, he said he now knows, is natural after such a disaster.

"During my conservation with Nick, he didn't say anything about anyone throwing punches," said Bleakley. "I heard from Nick on a phone call that ... the two of them fought real hard for quite a long time and Will succumbed to the elements because he was a little delusional and was throwing up and a wave washed him off. For some reason they were in the water, and Will could not climb back on. Will was gone."

Bleakley said that during a memorial service for his son, his family spoke with Schulyer, but the details of what happened were not discussed.

"I know that Nick tells it a little different now, the swimming away stuff is different; you have to ask him. He was at the service for Will. He said, 'Will was one of my best friends, I would not miss it for anything.' We didn't try to talk about what happened; we did not ask him any questions. He looked terrible. There was no time at all to talk about something that. I think that is an old story they are printing."

Like Bleakley, Cooper said he had not heard anything about punches being thrown. Cooper said Coast Guard officials, who had spoken with Schuyler, notified his family about what Nick told them "so we wouldn't hear it on the street."

"We only heard where Marquis had become delusional, took off his vest and jumped into water," said Cooper.

Before the memorial service, the Cooper and Smith families met with Schuyler and his family, Cooper said.

Cooper would not disclose what they talked about.

"When Nick is ready to tell his story to the media, I am sure he will," said Cooper. "We will allow him to do so."

Both fathers said they were not in a position to second guess Schuyler's account.

"I was not on the boat," said Bleakley. "I don't know anything but the fact that my son was on the boat and, not two days later, in 62-degree water, he would have been dead unless he was zapped up to Mars on an alien spacecraft or on some island somewhere."

"All I can tell you is that Nick's word stands as the authority," said Cooper. "Who is able to contradict what he says?"

Regardless of what is in the Coast Guard report, Bleakley said he and his family have accepted their son's fate.

"We were told by the Coast Guard that, in many cases, the bodies are never found," he said. "That did not hurt our feelings. A burial at sea has long been a noble burial."