Romo stayed step ahead
Bill Romanowski said he stayed one step ahead of the NFL’s drug policy during his 16-year career, always taking nutritional supplements that the league had not yet banned.
“As soon as they found out that something could be tested for, I stopped taking it. I didn’t want that embarrassment, but I pushed that envelope ethically and morally because if I could take something that would help me perform better and it wasn’t on the list, I was going to take it,” Romanowski said in an interview published Tuesday in the Rocky Mountain News.
“I had two criteria: Would it hurt me? And would I test positive?”
In the end, there’s been some embarrassment at what I had to deal with,” he said.
He said he took supplements because he was “insecure.”
From 1988-2003, Romanowski played linebacker for the San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders.
He was in Denver this week to promote his role as a prison guard in “The Longest Yard,” which opens later this month.
In 2001, Douglas County, Colo., prosecutors dropped charges against Romanowski’s wife, Julie, who had faced eight counts of illegally obtaining the diet drug phentermine for her husband. Romanowski had been acquitted on related charges the month before.
Investigators said he took phentermine to enhance his play, while the defense said he took the drug to suppress his appetite. The drug is not banned by the NFL.
In November 2003, the NFL notified Romanowski that he tested positive for newly discovered steroid THG, or tetrahydrogestrinone. Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative has been accused of giving the steroid to athletes to enhance performance.
Not so fast
Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle said there are several contenders threatening to replace the Kentucky Derby as “the most exciting two minutes in sports:
“(Steve) Nash’s annual haircut. … Lakers’ fastbreak. … The Kwame Brown era in D.C. … Kellen Winslow Jr.’s Evel Knievel impersonation. … An NBA 20-second timeout. … A Steinbrenner hissy fit. … Jason Giambi’s swing.”
Fit for print?
Greg Cote of the Miami Herald wrote that after Tiger Woods missed the PGA Tour cut last week to end a streak of 142 tournaments without missing the cut, he walked by the scorer’s tent and found a grinning Sheryl Crow singing “The First Cut Is the Deepest,” and chased her with his lob wedge.
“At least that’s what Newsweek reported,” Cote stated.
That hurts
Craig Biggio of the Houston Astros is not chasing one of baseball’s more dubious records. It’s chasing him. Through Monday, Biggio had been hit by 260 pitches and needs to be plunked eight more times to surpass the modern-era mark of 267 set by Don Baylor.
“I am up there to get a hit,” Biggio said in the New York Times. “I’m not trying to get hit.”