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Behind every man …

Gerri DeLamielleure seems to have little free time these days.

Her daily schedule is divided between “sleep” and “absolutely crazy,” what with answering phone calls, scheduling trips and clipping newspapers. Not to mention holding down a part-time job as a registered pediatric nurse.

Even planning a short interview can be a hardy feat of task management. “Can we talk next week?” she politely asked, in scheduling a recent chat with NURSEWEEK.

Gerri has an understandably full plate these days. She and Joe have been busier than a bottlenecked freeway since the Hall of Fame announced his membership Jan. 25. Conferences, dinners, memorabilia shows and meetings all across the country have beckoned to bestow honors for Joe’s career and accomplishments.

He was part of the storied “Electric Company” offensive line that blocked the way for O.J. Simpson’s record-setting days with the Buffalo Bills in the early ’70s. He also was named to the Pro Bowl six times.

“It’s been fantastic,” said Gerri, during a recent respite at the couple’s home in Charlotte, N.C. “He’s had a lot of functions to go to, and has a lot coming up. We were able to go to Hawaii with other [Hall of Fame] players. It was a great time, and it is going to be so fun in Canton.”

When the Pro Football Hall of Fame announced the list of inductees, the Saturday staff at Eastover Pediatrics in Charlotte combed the Internet to find and print out every article about Joe that their computer search engines could find. They found dozens of newspaper and Web site articles, chronicling his career and achievements.

They needed every one of them for what they had planned for Gerri, who works at the clinic three days a week but was not due in until the next Monday.

When Gerri arrived at the clinic for her duties in handling patients and answering triage phone calls, she walked into a barrage of ribbons, balloons and news stories about Joe covering every inch of office wall space. At the center of it all was a football-shaped cake.

“All the doctors in the practice, every single one of them, were excited,” Gerri said. “Everybody was incredibly supportive and now are saying all the time, ‘How’s it going?’ ‘When’s the big day?’ 85 They are a special group.”

That group is excited for Gerri for more than the return of some of her husband’s former fame, her boss said. They are celebrating a friendship that goes back nearly 10 years, when she first began working at the clinic, and for bringing her wit and compassion in her connections with doctors, fellow nurses and patients.

“She’s energetic and enthusiastic, and is always smiling,” said Jane Moss, the practice’s nursing supervisor. “We like to say around the office the thing that must keep her going is chocolate,” she added, laughing.

“She started out in our office as a fill-in, and later started working regularly from about 8:30 to 12. Later, Gerri actually became our on-call nurse at home for our doctors,” Moss said. “If I had to choose one word that would best describe Gerri, it would be ‘adaptability.’ ”

Her versatility makes her at ease with patients aged 1 week to 18 years, Moss said. Gerri can share a good laugh with patients, but also show a decisiveness that is crucial in providing no-nonsense advice for parents.

For instance, some parents of athletic teenagers call the office wondering which over-the-counter stimulants and supplements are “safe” for their youngsters to take for a competitive edge. Gerri takes some of these calls, from patients who may be familiar with her husband’s background in pro football. But they are surprised to learn what Gerri recommends: “None of them.”

“Even if you read labels, it doesn’t tell you a lot about what’s in there,” Gerri said. “They’re not regulated, as they probably should be. I’ve cautioned our son [Todd, an aspiring professional football player] several times not to do them. He’s been pretty responsible, and I think people in sports are a little bit more cautious.

“I know when Joe was in professional sports in a training room, if you needed something other than an aspirin, you sat and waited for the doctor,” Gerri said.

Taking the high road

Today, at 53, Joe DeLamielleure is as fit as he’s ever been. He jumps rope longer and faster than a schoolgirl, and works out more often than dedicated gym rats half his age.

Joe’s physical condition is not common for most men his age, and is especially unheard of among NFL veterans who take battered bodies into middle age.

“[Joe] probably could have played more years,” Gerri said. “But he had a great career and he was injury-free. He was able to walk away from it. Nowadays, players may be making millions and millions of dollars. But if you lose your life over it, what’s that worth?”

The DeLamielleures understand that lesson up close and personal.

Joe was a first-round selection of the Buffalo Bills in the 1973 NFL draft, a nimble offensive guard who would run out along the outside running lanes and plow over linebackers and safeties. But midway through his career, Joe started noticing the “monsters” that began to line up in front of him.

“They had put on 30 pounds” over the summer, Gerri said. “They were more muscular and they were lifting houses 85 and Joe said they’d either, one, taken something, or two, there had been a giant leap in evolution over the off-season.”

It became especially evident to Joe in 1980, when he competed with seven other prominent NFL linemen in a made-for-TV event called the “Strongest Men in Football.” Some of the league’s premier linemen were there to perform feats of superhuman weight-lifting prowess. According to a January article in ESPN the Magazine, some were squat-lifting up to 22 times with 550 pounds on their shoulders.

DeLamielleure was out of the running early in the competition, unable to keep up with players he said he witnessed injecting themselves with steroids in between events.

Four of the players competing in that contest that day are dead: Bob Young, Lyle Alzado, Steve Furness and Mike Webster died within the next 22 years, some before they turned 50, from heart attacks or cancer.

It is not known whether steroid abuse was a contributing factor in those deaths, or whether Furness or Webster used steroids. But Alzado and Young later admitted their steroid use, and Alzado, through a cover article in Sports Illustrated, blamed steroids for a brain tumor that was to kill him in his early 40s in 1991. Alzado was Joe’s teammate and friend from their days in Cleveland.

Joe was tempted to take a growth supplement only once. Although averse to needles, Joe discovered “growth hormones” in the early 1980s that were available as pills. Believing they were safe, Joe took them and saw immediate results. “My bench press just shot up,” Joe said. “I didn’t want to quit. But I’ll never forget talking to Gerri about it.”

Showing them to her, she was wary of the generic nature of the pills—no label, no ingredients. Although she was not fully versed in the pharmacology of steroids or growth hormones, her nursing background gave her strong suspicions. She trusts the mantra of “First, do no harm.”

“She took the pills and just poured them down the drain,” Joe recalls.

“If a physician says you have to take thyroid medication, then you need to take thyroid medication. But I don’t take anything unless I need to,” Gerri said. “I don’t even take [unnecessary] prescription medications. It’s like surgery—if you have a choice not to have it, then don’t have it.”

Joe would never touch anything but multivitamins from that point forward.