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| It
came to pass that Joe never needed steroids to be
recognized as a great player. On Aug. 3, he will
be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as
one of the best offensive linemen to have played
the game. |
Joe DeLamielleure was nearing the end of his playing
career in the National Football League when he noticed
he was getting smaller.
Not in comparison to his playing weight of previous
years, but in sizing himself up against the new crop
of NFL players entering the game in the early 1980s.
His 254-pound frame was being eclipsed by 300-pounders.
With tree-trunk necks and the strength to seemingly
carry a small truck, the new players were a threat to
the on-field acumen and job security of “Joe D,”
as his fans in Buffalo and Cleveland called him.
What was their secret? Something that wasn’t
all that secret to DeLamielleure: anabolic steroids.
DeLamielleure refused to take them, partly out of fears
for his health and his belief in “doing the right
thing.” He also happened to be aligned with a
force greater than the temptation to cut corners: a
diligent registered nurse who happened to be his wife.
Joe likes to joke that Gerri DeLamielleure, RN, forbade
him from taking anabolic steroids and growth hormones
in his playing days for the sake of their offspring.
“She said, ‘If we’re going to have
any more kids, I don’t want them to have fins,’
” Joe said.
But Gerri had a much more sober reason for objecting
to the supplements. She feared the long-term ramifications
for Joe in using mystery “miracle” supplements
that promised to improve his performance and extend
his career, but leave him a physical wreck after his
playing days were over. Her concerns have been tragically
realized through the lives—and deaths—of
several of Joe D’s contemporaries in the years
since.
It came to pass that Joe never needed steroids to be
recognized as a great player. On Aug. 3, DeLamielleure
(duh-LAHM-uh-LEAR) will be enshrined in the Pro Football
Hall of Fame as one of the best offensive linemen to
have played the game.
Joe will stand alongside four other men accepting their
enshrinement in Canton, Ohio. And while it will be Joe’s
history, words and likeness on display (the Hall provides
a bronze head bust of each enshrined player), a part
of Gerri will be going into those fabled halls as well,
family and friends say.
“Gerri’s a wonderful woman,” said
retired Buffalo News sports columnist Larry Felser,
a longtime acquaintance who argued for DeLameilleure’s
induction before the panel of pro football writers that
selects candidates. “Things were a little rocky
for them for awhile. And Gerri was the rock for him.”
Said Joe: “I think it means a lot more to the
both of us [as a couple] than a lot of people who go
into the Hall of Fame.”
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