I compromised my morality to get ahead, to play another year, to play two more years, to win another Super Bowl.
- Bill Romanowski
Football is a brutal game. Professional football is a brutal, ruthless, show-no-mercy-take-no-prisoners game that can leave participants with physical effects that linger long after they retire. In some cases, these effects can linger throughout an ex-player’s life. Some studies have even shown that playing NFL football can contribute to a shortened lifespan, and yet, given the money to be made and the adoration to be had, it’s a deal with the Devil that many athletes willingly make.
Bill Romanowski was one of the greatest linebackers to ever play professional football. Brutal, driven, and completely dedicated to his craft, he was a player that coaches used as a role model to teach young players how to play the position. If there was a collision in the offing, you can bet that Romanowski always got his money’s worth. The sad reality, though, is that the bottom line of Romanowski’s long and storied career was that he was a cheater. By shrewdly and expertly using available training techniques and chemicals, he was able to push his body to ever greater achievements.
The question he must be asking himself now is, “Was it worth it?” Judging by the lingering physical effects of his skirting the rules of the game and of common sense, Romanowski’s pharmacological excesses may cost him in the long term.
This NFL “hitman earned a nasty reputation for extraordinary violence, breaking bones of his opponents and even a teammate.
In a brutally honest book about a brutal career, Romo admits he has regrets, including steroids and cheap shots. But he told 60 Minutes the only way to survive in the NFL was to hit with overpowering strength and hatred.
“I felt I could take myself to a place where other guys weren’t willing to go because come Sunday after a game, I already started hating the next opponent. I started hating the guy I was going to go against, says Romanowski. “I hated the coaches. I hated their fans. I hated their family. You name it. And by the time I got onto that field come Sunday, watch out because there was rage. ….
Nobody goes to the game to watch men play nice, but for Romanowski it wasn’t enough to tackle. He aimed to annihilate, to take an opponent out of the game or out for the season.
He hit in a relentless 271 games and never missed one in 16 seasons. An incredible stat, considering the average player hobbles to survive three seasons.
Bill Romanoski would never have won the NFL’s version of the NHL Lady Byng Award (if in fact there was one), given at the end of each season for sportmanship and gentlemanly play. Then again, the National Football League is not an environment that values those qualities. Romanowski was simply holding up what he thought was his end of the bargain.
Who exactly was Romo? “Romo was the hardest working S.O.B. that ever stepped on that field, says Romanowski.
People who despise him don’t argue with that. He was known as a fanatic about training, never taking a day off, even in the off season.
But pushing plates was only half the secret. Romanowski had a nearly-religious — some would say weird — devotion to supplements. At home, he had a tackle box of vitamins, minerals, enzymes and amino acids. He took 100 pills a day and made a science of everything from herbs to acupuncture.
He even tried live cell therapy, getting injected with cells from Scottish black sheep. Romanowski says the treatment was supposed to help him heal from the physical trauma he was experiencing on the field.
He spent $200,000 a year on supplements, doctors and therapists and admits he didn’t know what was in some of the potions they were pouring.
Romanowski says that in Philadelphia the team sent him to a hospital for something called a Trauma I.V. “When I walked in the hospital on crutches, and I ran out of the hospital, I knew it was something good.
Once, after knee surgery in the off season, he was back in the gym four hours later with anesthesia still drifting through his head.
“Romo” was a man willing to place his own personal health and safety at risk if that was what it took to be able to play football. “Romo” recognized that, given the hypercompetitive, unforgiving nature of the NFL game, he could be replaced at a moment’s notice and without so much as a second thought. His aim was to postpone the inevitable denouement of his career as long as he possibly could. And he was willing to take his quest for career elongation to lengths few athletes would have considered, much less been willing to subject themselves to.
Bill Romanowski was clearly a man consumed by his passion, his fear, and the knowledge that somewhere, somehow, someone was going to replace him, and everything he had lived and worked and sacrificed for would be gone. That knowledge and that fear drove him to places that few athletes and even fewer mortals would dare venture to. Never in all that time did Romanowski apparently ever consider what the long term effects might be- to himself, to his reputation, and most of all, to his family.
What was the most difficult part for the NFL star? “The embarrassment to my family, and friends, to teammates, team owners and the league, that hurt. And ultimately a little boy that looks up to his dad, and he said, ‚Äö√Ñ√≤Dad, do you do drugs?’ And that one hurt me more than anything, Romanowski says.
Romanowski says his son heard about the drugs at school. “I gave him the best answer I knew how to give him at the time. And I said, ‚Äö√Ñ√≤Dalton, Daddy did a lot of things to deal with the pain of the game.’
I cannot imagine how a man can face a question like that from his young son without feeling shame and embarrassment. Imagine having to massage the truth when telling your son that, yes, you did a lot of bad things to play the game. In order to continue doing what he did, Romanowski had to continue skirting and breaking NFL rules and perhaps even more than a few laws. THEN he has to face his son and try to explain why he did the things he felt necessary- and no doubt hope that his son won’t ask too many uncomfortable questions.
What may be even worse, though, are the physical effects beginning to manifest themselves- effects that may not go away any time soon, and indeed may, or may not, get worse with the passage of time.
“The pain of the game finally caught up with him. He likens his hits to car crashes and Romanowski was suffering ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ and hiding ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ severe concussions throughout his entire career.
He recalled a collision with Curtis Martin that injured his brain so badly that he went to the sideline and sat on quarterback John Elway’s lap.
“The end was getting near. And it scared me, says Romanowski, admitting that he told no one. “The concussions were racking up. Every time I would get a good hit on somebody I would be dazed, confused. My memory was starting to go.
Romanowski estimates he suffered between eight and 20 concussion over the years.
The last concussion came during a game against Denver in 2003, the last game in the career he so violently defended.
Julie Romanowski, his wife of 12 years, was in the stadium. “Then when the team doctor came out and said ‚Äö√Ñ√≤We want to admit Bill immediately to the hospital,’ and he came out and he said, ‚Äö√Ñ√≤Julie, please just take me home. I don’t want to go.’ And at that moment, I saw somebody who was normally larger than life turn to me in almost a boyish way asking for help.”
Romanowski couldn’t see straight or balance. He had headaches and nausea. Now, two years later, doctors say he shows profound slowing in cognitive function, which may get better with time.
“The pain of the game finally caught up with him. He likens his hits to car crashes and Romanowski was suffering ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ and hiding ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ severe concussions throughout his entire career.
Was it worth it? I can’t answer that; it’s a question best left for Bill Romanowski and his family to answer. In the quest to play the game he had loved since he was 10, he crossed lines and subjected himself to things no mere mortal should have to endure. That he did it to continue playing the game may ultimately cost him. There is no real way to know, of course, if Romanowski’s lifespan will be shortened because of his blatant disregard for his own health and safety. Still, no sane person should ever subject themselves to what Bill Romanowski did to himself over the course of a 16-year NFL career.
Of course, none of this really even begins to examine that reality that Bill Romanowski was a cheater off the field and a thug on it. If he can look his son in the eye without feeling regret, then he’s a man without a conscience- and perhaps that is the saddest aspect of Bill Romanowski’s story.
This may be the first “Lifetime Achievement” DUMB@$$ AWARD that I’ve bestowed upon an individual. There should be no doubt that Bill Romanoswki richly deserves this “honor”, however. I can only hope that, in spite of all the odds, he lives a long and helathy life so that he may enjoy it.
