(Bob and Ken Shamrock, circa 1983. Photo courtesy of Knucklepit.)
Bob Shamrock, who helped raise hundreds of troubled boys at his Shamrock Ranch group home in Susanville, California, passed away yesterday at age 68 from complications due to diabetes; Shamrock had been in poor health since suffering a heart attack in September 2008. To MMA fans, Bob is best known as the man who provided Kenneth Wayne Nance (later Ken Shamrock) and Frank Alisio Juarez III (later Frank Shamrock) with stable homes, eventually adopting them as his sons.
Unhappy with a new stepfather that entered his life at age 10, Ken Nance ran away from home and immediately began getting into trouble, committing robberies to support himself and bouncing between group homes before landing at the Shamrock Ranch at age 13. Frank Juarez’s background was remarkably similar: His own experiences with an abusive stepfather spurred behavioral issues that would place him in the juvenile state system beginning at the age of 11; he also entered the Shamrock Ranch at 13. With Bob, they found the sense of order that their lives had been missing. From a press release posted last night on KenShamrock.com:
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