Romanowski Comes Clean
by Anthony Roberts

Back in high school I had a single football card taped to my bedroom mirror. On the card was a pasty-white linebacker, not much to look at, kind of awkward and almost a bit pudgy.

I had, at that age, vaguely followed the San Francisco 49'ers and more specifically, Bill Romanowski. I always looked at him as the ultimate workhorse. His genetics were (if you look at him early in his career) nothing special, nor was his strength or speed all that remarkable. He wasn't a Lawrence Taylor type of player — one whose gifts were obvious and undeniable.

Bill Romanowski was a player looking to maximize his potential whatever the cost, and at this point, his story begins to resemble one told a thousand times before. What makes his story different? There's no hero to this story, no guy who was duped into believing steroids would do something they wouldn't, no naïve farm boy getting suckered, no D-bol slipped into a protein shake.

This story is about a guy who played his entire career out, never missing a game, while using various steroids and other pharmaceuticals... and never getting caught.

"I was so geeked up nobody could talk to me." Bill Romanowski

The first pharmaceutical Romo used to enhance his performance was Phentermine, a prescription diet drug sold under the name Adipex-P. Although Phentermine is typically used to reduce appetite, it's in the amphetamine family and provides quite a bit of central nervous system stimulation as well as a little euphoria. It even has a slight pain killing effect.

Romo took half a tab before each game. Just half a tab? I meant a tab. No, wait... make that one before the game and maybe a half tab at halftime, possibly a full tab if he needed it. Did I mention that Phentermine is habit forming? It also makes you act like the typical amphetamine user: you sweat, you talk faster, you shake a bit — you're totally geeked up.

The next drug Romo tried was Arimidex. Yeah, that's right, the prescription drug used to halt the progression of breast cancer. It works by attacking the aromatase enzyme, which is responsible for the production of estrogen.

But when estrogen is reduced, typically, Testosterone will be raised, and 1mg of Arimidex can raise natural Testosterone levels by up to 58% (1). Bodybuilders typically use it to fight excess estrogen produced by the aromatase enzyme, which is a result of adding outside hormones to their bodies (anabolic steroids).

Shortly thereafter, Romo met Victor Conte, had some blood work done, and began using some nutritional supplements prescribed by BALCO. At this point, he was still one of the best linebackers in the league, making tons of tackles each season, and even getting the occasional sack.

But Romo was getting older and sorer each day, and the pounding his body took as an NFL linebacker was taking its toll on him. He turned to live-cell therapy for help. If you aren't familiar with it, here's the deal: you drink a vial of live cells from an animal (a sheep, let's say), and it's supposed to speed muscle and tendon repair and growth.

Romo drank eight vials a month at a cost of $125 dollars each. He started out drinking bovine liver cells, but eventually moved on to bovine stem cells. (If you're interested in trying this, I'd recommend you try the double-dutch chocolate flavor. Yum!)

In 2001, Victor Conte introduced Romo to "The Clear," which was to be taken sublingually. Interestingly, although Romo doesn't complain about the taste of bovine stem cells, in his book he makes note of the Clear having a foul taste (2). The Clear is simply a 19-nor-Testosterone derived steroid: tetrahydrogestrinone or THG for short.

Victor Conte of BALCO

THG is structurally related to Gestrinone, an unregulated (and not anabolic) steroid. When you ethylate it by adding four hydrogen atoms to the ethynyl group, you get THG, which can be a very potent anabolic agent. It's a progestin, just like its parent compound, so it's no surprise that the primary benefit Romo noticed was increased recovery and less joint pain.

This drug operates very much like Deca-Durabolin in this respect. It was also, it must be noted, notbanned by the FDA or NFL at that time; no one outside of BALCO and their athletes even knew about it. Make no mistake, however, it is most certainly a steroid.

Vinopectine was next on Romo's list of pharmaceutical friends. Athletes in Europe have been using this stuff for years to improve reaction time, ATP synthesis, memory, and motor skill function. Its clinical use, however, is as an anti-Parkinson's treatment.

Although clinical studies in healthy athletes aren't going to ever be a viable option for a drug like this, coaches around the world (even our esteemed Charles Poliquin) have noticed improvements with use of this compound. Since it's not on the FDA's radar, it's readily available to anyone who looks for it.

And speaking of Charles Poliquin, the last pharmaceutical in Romo's bag of tricks was I.V. (intravenous) administered Glutathione and vitamin C. Poliquin has been using this trick for years to enhance recovery, clear waste from the body, increase workload and stamina, and even reduce body fat.

Romo said he was using this technique for the last few years of his career, although there's a picture in his book of him getting a halftime I.V. administered while still with the 49'ers (2). Naturally, he then progressed to having his live cell therapy administered through I.V. instead of drinking it.

"My new favorite supplement was hatred for the opposition." Bill Romanowski

Was anything Romo ingested banned by the NFL while he took it? No. Was it banned by the FDA? Again, no. So what did he do that was so wrong? To find that answer, we need to examine his on-field antics.

He spit in J.J. Stokes's face, broke somebody's finger at the bottom of a pile up, kicked a player five times in the head, broke a quarterback's jaw with a helmet to helmet tackle, fought Charles Haley in training camp, speared wide receivers illegally, broke another player's ocular cavity, and was involved in innumerable shoving matches and on-field altercations.

At this point, by the end of his career, he wasn't the pasty-white and almost pudgy linebacker whose picture was on my bedroom mirror; he was a chiseled and striated monster, roughly 25 solid pounds heavier than he was in his rookie season, maybe more.

Were the drugs to blame for his behavior? He says they weren't and I believe him. His win-at-all-costs attitude and willingness to do whatever it took to do that is to blame. But in saying that, we also have to give credit where it's due. Romo worked hard throughout his career, and didn't rely on drugs to do that work for him.

He didn't even use any performance enhancing drugs until he was already a professional. He was already a very good linebacker with a superior work ethic. Drugs didn't make Bill Romanowski a good linebacker, just as they didn't make Bonds or Giambi good baseball players.

Unfortunately, when people look back on Romo's career, they'll remember him for spitting in J.J. Stokes's face and for breaking Kerry Collins's jaw. The fact that he led his team in tackles several times throughout his career will be almost an afterthought to the fact that he used pharmaceuticals to enhance his performance and employed on-the-field tactics that weren't very sportsmanlike.

So, does Romanowski's career get an asterisk? How will he be remembered by sports historians and football fans? How have performance enhancing drugs changed the very nature of sports?

Let's discuss.

1. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2000 Jul;85(7):2370-7, "Estrogen Suppression in Males"

2. Romo My Life on the Edge: Living Dreams and Slaying Dragons. by Bill Romanowski et al. William Morrow Publishing co. 2005