JOHN SAGE -- Founder and Executive Director of Bridges to Life in Houston.
Life has a way of taking us to places we could never imagine, and few know this better than John Sage: star college athlete, wildly successful businessman, and self-made millionaire at thirty-six. That he would one day find himself the founder of an organization bringing inmates and victims of crime face-to-face was nowhere in his plans, until a series of events thrust him into that role and became his life work.
Born and raised in Houston, one of eight children, he attended St. Thomas High School before enrolling at Louisiana State University to pursue a B.S. in Finance and a Masters in Business Administration. He was an athletic standout on the LSU football team – a three-year letterman, defensive captain, and All-SEC honor winner as defensive tackle. He was sought after to play professionally, but declined.
In his personal account written for Guidepost Magazine, Sage describes himself as someone who went after what he wanted, and got it. His business revolved around real estate deals and finance. He started Sage
Land Company and was principal owner of John Sage & Co.; he was definitely successful. By age thirty-six he was a millionaire and should have been on the top of the world. Instead, he found himself listless and barely able to function, the result of clinical depression caused by a chemical imbalance, and made worse by stress. It is a tough disease, and especially for someone at the top of his game. He reluctantly agreed to treatment, finding a therapist and taking medication. It was a hard struggle, and it took nearly a year for him to recover and regain momentum. His business had suffered in his absence, and he had a hard fight to put it straight again, but he was determined and certain he would.
Then the unthinkable occurred. His sister, Marilyn, to whom he had been inseparably close, was senselessly murdered by two nineteen-year-olds out for a joy ride. Filled with extreme grief and consumed by rage, he felt the debilitating symptoms of clinical depression return, but this time with an even greater vengeance. He could no longer function and ultimately signed up for disability.
Sensing he had reached rock bottom one January day in 1994, he surrendered. Falling to his knees on the cold tile floor, he recounts, he prayed and let go, turning his life over to God. He felt better almost immediately having said it, but then began the struggle of coming back, finding a therapist, taking medication and slowly rebuilding his life.
Just as he thought he had recovered and was becoming his old self again, the murder trials began. He felt anger and rage boil up, and he wanted nothing more than to see the two who murdered his sister convicted and executed for their crime. He got his wish. Each was sentenced to death, but he felt it was a hollow victory. Nothing had changed. He did not have his sister back, and he was still filled with anger and pain. Sage realized he needed to surrender yet again, but this time wholly, giving up all control to God.
He began a spiritual commitment with even greater resolve, and gradually came to find the peace he sought. He skeptically volunteered for a program called Sycamore Tree, in which crime victims meet with inmates over a twelve-week period, and was surprised to see that the exchange did make a significant difference in the lives of the inmates, and that it also helped the victims.
In 1998 he founded a similar program called Bridges to Life to help empower victims and rehabilitate prisoners. Its goal is to reduce the recidivism rate (the rate inmates return to prison) of offenders and thereby affect a consequent reduction in crime in Texas.
It is estimated that up to 50% of released inmates return to criminal activity and prison. Current statistics for those inmates completing the Bridges to Life program reflect a 13% recidivism rate, and of that number only 1% has returned for violent crimes.
Today, the organization has more than three hundred volunteers in twenty-two Texas prisons. Nearly four thousand inmates have completed the Bridges to Life program. Preliminary results indicate the program is successful in reducing recidivism among participants.
For more information on Bridges to Life, visit www.bridgestolife.org.