Hall of Fame/NFL Photos	More NurseWeek Features   Smoke-Free Zone   Nurses and patients tackle nicotine addiction   Bloodless Survival     Surgical techniques to use when transfusion drops out of the equation
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.”

Next Page