A standout student-athlete in football, baseball and wrestling as well as senior and spohomore class president for Pittsburg High School's Class of 1990 in his native California, Joe O'Brien overcame a volatile childhood and adolescence hampered by parents who were part of the California outlaw motorcycle culture with all its inherent dangers and nefanious activities.
 
When he was 17, O'Brien's father-whom he both feared and loved-died of an overdose of hero