A Winning Team
Future NFL Hall of Famer credits his wife — an RN — for blocking him from taking anabolic steroids during his career, allowing him to remain fit and in good health long after his playing days ended

By Glen Fest
July 14, 2003

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.”

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.

Working their way out

The DeLamielleures have always had their health, but not always good luck. The couple had a serious adjustment to make in life after football, especially when they were swindled out of their life savings by a business acquaintance that left them nearly $135,000 in debt a decade ago.

“He just ripped us off royally,” Gerri said. “That was an unfortunate set of circumstances. But at the time, we had six kids to raise, so it’s not like you can throw in the towel. We just had to go forward.”

Gerri, who had been a full-time mother to their six children (who include two Korean orphans), returned to nursing part time as Joe took any job he could find. He began a short-lived boxing career at 41. He played on a fledgling Arena Football League team for a few hundred dollars a game. He also coached a local prep school team and served as head of athletic facilities.

And he held each of those occupations simultaneously.

Joe tried college football coaching, landing a few jobs as an assistant coach that proved to be fleeting (as most college football coaching jobs are). Needing stability, Joe found a career as a uniform salesman for the past decade in Charlotte. It helped the family regain its financial footing.

“Things are a lot better now,” said Joe, who recently moved to a new post for a Charlotte investment and pension planning company. He also is getting back into football, as he is scheduled to work on pre-game and post-game telecasts covering the NFL’s Carolina Panthers this season.

Homecoming

In his induction speech, Joe plans to share a few words about his wife as he stands in front of thousands at Canton—and millions on television—in August. He could go on at length about Gerri, he said, but it would be too emotional for him.

As Joe’s day of induction into the Hall of Fame nears, Gerri deflects most of the praise to her husband. “I think about it as something he’s earned along the way. I guess I feel like anybody who’s been married to someone a long time—you either support them or you don’t support them,” Gerri said. “I don’t think of it as a reward for me. I share it with him, but I don’t think I earned it like he did.”

The joys both are experiencing this summer include the excitement of renewed attention on Joe’s career and the warmth of friendships with long-lost acquaintances rekindled. Former teachers, coaches and teammates are phoning and coming by for visits.

“You always think you’re forgotten and then when this happens, it’s just incredible,” Gerri said. “I see him in functions, and he is still the same person—a down-to-earth and easygoing, shirt-off-his-back kind of guy. But people treat him differently [now].

“He did an autograph show a few weeks back with Bart Starr,” the legendary Green Bay Packers quarterback of the 1960s, Gerri said. “Joe’s in awe of Bart Starr, but Bart tells him, ‘Hey, you’re one of us. You’re in the family.’ ”

Unfortunately for Gerri, her extended family at Eastover Pediatrics won’t be able to attend Joe’s induction ceremonies in person. Charlotte is about 450 miles away from Canton, and there are patients to see that day, anyway.

“We would love to be there,” Moss said. “Everybody here is excited for Gerri and for Joe, and we’re certainly going to be there in spirit.”

Contact Glen Fest at glenf@nurseweek.com.