Not Without Hope

On February 28, 2009, Nick Schuyler went on a deep-sea fishing trip with three friends: NFL players Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith, and Will Bleakley, former University of South Florida football player and Nick's best friend. What was supposed to be a day of fun and relaxation aboard Cooper's twenty-one-foot vessel turned nightmarish in the Gulf of Mexico, seventy miles west of Tampa, Florida, when a tragic mistake caused their boat to capsize. With no food or water, no emergency beacon to alert authorities, the four athletes clung to the overturned hull through the night—battling hypothermia, hallucinations, hunger, dehydration, and huge pounding waves, as they prayed, spoke of their loved ones, and shared what they would have done differently with their lives. In the end, only one would reach dry land alive. Much more than a riveting true account of survival, Not Without Hope is Nick Schuyler's inspiring story of courage, resolve, and friendship.