In The News
Romanowski marketing healing supplements
By Daniel Malloy, Boston Globe Correspondent | June 26, 2007
In late 2003, Raiders linebacker Bill Romanowski drove his car out of the parking lot at McAfee Coliseum in Oakland and then stopped. Sixteen seasons in the NFL as one of the hardest-hitting players in the game had come to this: Romanowski couldn’t remember where his house was.
Romanowski, who played at Boston College from 1984-87, had incurred countless concussions during his years on the gridiron, and the results were devastating to his brain.
“Basically, [the doctors] said, ‘Do not put a helmet on and run into people anymore,’ ” Romanowski recalled in a phone interview yesterday from California. “They also said, ‘We can’t tell you if you’ll end up like Muhammad Ali.’ ”
Romanowski, who played for the 49ers, Eagles, Broncos, and Raiders, retired at the end of that season, and set out to reverse the effects of years of violent collisions. He had strengthened his body throughout his NFL career with supplements — including THG and ephedrine — that sometimes straddled the line of legality, and Romanowski hoped he could build up his mind as well.
He consulted doctors and scientists, taking their advice and combining it into a homemade product.
“[I was] a little bit of a mad scientist,” Romanowski said.
Last year, Romanowski decided to launch a company to sell his line of supplements called Nutrition53 (Romanowski’s jersey number throughout his college and pro career).
The two-time Pro Bowler and four-time Super Bowl champion still speaks slowly, and frequently pauses, but he said his products have helped him dramatically.
“I have gotten considerably better,” Romanowski said. “I know how to get to my house. Am I forgetful, still, at times? Absolutely. Do I still have a sense of taste and smell? Yes.”
Romanowski has come out with two products so far: Neuro1, which he claims will sharpen and energize the brain, and Sleep1, which promotes more restful and rejuvenating sleep, according to nutrition53.com. Romanowski markets the products to athletes as well as business professionals looking for an edge, but he resonates most when talking about his own experiences with head trauma.
Romanowski said he didn’t speak up about his concussions until the end of his career because he wanted to get back on the field.
“If you’re an older player and you start getting concussed, the team can say what they want — they are going to figure out a way to cut you and bring in somebody new,” he said. “Someone who’s getting concussed is a liability.”
Romanowski is known less for concussions than the controversy that surrounded him throughout his career. In 1997, while he was with the Broncos, television cameras caught Romanowski spitting in the face of San Francisco wide receiver J.J. Stokes.
He also was charged, and later acquitted, with illegally obtaining the diet pill Phentermine in 1998 and using it as a performance-enhancing drug. He tested positive for THG, also known as “The Clear,” in 2003. That same year, he punched Raiders teammate Marcus Williams during training camp, breaking Williams’s eye socket. Williams’s playing career ended shortly thereafter, and Romanowski agreed to pay a $415,000 settlement two years later.
In 2005, he released an autobiography, “Romo: My Life on the Edge,” that detailed his drug use in the NFL.
Still, Romanowski claims that though he used products now banned by the league, he never used a product that was illegal at the time.
“I looked at the list as the Bible,” Romanowski said of the NFL’s list of banned substances.
“The biggest regret I have in my 16-year career is at the end of my career taking THG, which when I took it, it didn’t have a name and they didn’t know what it was. I knew I was pushing that line, that integrity line, that moral line of right and wrong.”
Romanowski also had a long relationship with Victor Conte, the head of the Bay Area Lab Co-Operative who spent four months in prison for orchestrating an illegal steroid distribution scheme. Romanowski said the media overlooked Conte’s work with mineral supplements, which the linebacker said were some of the best products he took.
“One thing I do know about Victor is he’s an honest guy,” Romanowski said. “Some of the real criminals were the investigators . . . with the different tactics that they would use and the different lies that they would use to try to get information. A lot of the guys that were busting him were guys that had bought steroids from him on a regular basis — and took them.”
The athletes implicated in Conte’s distribution ring have been mostly track athletes or baseball players, and Romanowski said the NFL’s strict testing policy has kept the league clean.
“People want to say that the league is really dirty,” Romanowski said. “I’m here to tell you it’s not.”
Sounding little like the Romo who was considered by many a dirty and overly aggressive player in his NFL days, Romanowski spoke about “taking care of humanity,” and his desire to send Nutrition53 products to Iraq to help soldiers who suffer concussions in battle.
He praised the NFL for its recent work in addressing concussions in the game and hopes to get the league to endorse his products to players.
“I just knew how tough the game was on the body,” Romanowski said. “This is a way for me to give back.”
Romo tackles biz in supplements
By Penny Parker, Rocky Mountain News (Contact) Saturday, April 7, 2007
Say what you will about former Broncos bruiser Bill Romanowski’s steroid use while he was in the NFL. He did it, he admitted it, he’s moved on.
Nowadays, the supplements he swallows are not on the NFL’s banned substance list. The former linebacker has gone into the nutritional additive business with Crocs founder George Boedecker. The new company, Nutrition53 (after his old jersey number), makes and distributes Neuro 1, “fuel for thought.”
“How this company got started was that I had a lot of concussions in my career,” said a hoarse Romanowski on Tuesday, after a series of radio shows and interviews. “I went to doctors that the NFL sent me to, and there was nothing they could do. So, I hired a team of doctors and scientists to create a product to turn my brain back on.”
Neuro 1 is a powder that - when mixed with water and taken daily - claims to “sharpen memory and recall, improve sports performance, stay focused and on task longer, support workout stamina and enhance mood and well-being.”
Does it work? Heck if I know. There are testimonials from Neuro 1 users on the Web site nutrition53.com saying this stuff works wonders. A one-month tub of the supplement costs $99.97.
“This is for working people who want an edge on the competition,” Romanowski said. “You don’t need to put on a football helmet and run into people for 16 years to need this.”
Meanwhile, Romo, who had a bit part in the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard, continues to make movies. In the upcoming movie Weiners, he plays a gay cowboy. In Get Smart, a movie he starts shooting next week, he plays an air traffic controller.
Romanowski stayed in the Bay Area after he left the NFL as an Oakland Raider but says his heart is in Colorado. “I really do miss the people in Colorado. Whenever I’m there, I feel like I’m home.”
YARD BARKER SPORTS NEWS
Bill Romanowski is getting into the supplement business
Romo knew about two things, playing football and what to put into his body to make him a better football player. Now that he can’t play football, he’s going in business with Crocs founder George Boedecker. The new company, Nutrition53 (after his old jersey number), makes and distributes Neuro 1, “fuel for thought”. Romo had a lot of concussions during his career so he hired a team of doctors and scientists to create a product to turn his brain back on. I hope he can flip his brain back on, he might not seem so crazy. You can visit his website: nutrition53.com
Bill Romanowski: The Blitz Interview
by Jon Robinson
IGN Sports: In the game, Blitz goes beyond the playing field where hookers can come to your room before a game and make you tired. How often do things like that really happen?
Bill Romanowski: [laughs] You know what, I think there are things like that that happen. That was a little bit before my time. When I started playing, they had guards in the hallway and police to keep that stuff from going on, but I heard a lot of stories about what guys would do.
IGN Sports: Any that you’d like to share?
Bill Romanowski: The infamous one is down at the Super Bowl when I was playing with Denver and we were playing Atlanta. The infamous, going out and the night before the game going out and getting a hooker. It happened with the safety of the Falcons. And you just never know who might have enticed that on. [laughs] You just never know. You never know if we just had them hanging out at their hotel just to see if we could get one of their players to bite on it, and sure enough, it was hook, line, and sinker. [laughs]
IGN Sports: As one of the most fined players in NFL history, did you keep track of how much money you lost?
Bill Romanowski: No, my wife did though. [laughs]
IGN Sports: Are there ever any regrets when you get fined, or do you make so much that a little fine doesn’t even matter?
Bill Romanowski: You think about it, but winning games was always more important to me, and dominating my opponent was more important to me. Intimidating my opponent was more important to me than a paycheck. When I took the field, there were guys trying to take my job, trying to take food off of my table, and what I used to do is go out there and say ‘Bring it on!’ It’s going to be a 60-minute war from the time that the ball is kicked to the final whistle, I’m going to dominate your ass every single play until we win this, so you better be ready because if that whistle doesn’t blow, I’m knocking you out. You better have your head on a swivel because I’m coming your way and I’m going to hunt you downIGN Sports: When you get hurt in Blitz, you have to decide whether you want to come out and rest or take the needle and go right back in. How tough of a decision is that in real life?
Bill Romanowski: I’ve had that happen. I’ve gotten hurt, I remember against Arizona, I got hurt right before the half. I could not run at all. When I went to the locker room at halftime, I had my entire hip injected so I could go out and play the second half. I know what that is like. I also had a shoulder injury early in my career in San Francisco, and for eight games straight, I had to take the needle in the shoulder, numb up my shoulder so I could play.
IGN Sports: Does this still go on as much in the NFL today?
Bill Romanowski: Absolutely, they sure do.
IGN Sports: With all of the new rules in the NFL about celebrations and taunting, are things reverting back to the No Fun League?
Bill Romanowski: They are very image conscious, and I think for all the right reasons. I think they want that stuff because they know the fans go nuts over it, but then they don’t want it. They want their cake and eat it too. It’s a tough situation for them. They’re just trying to do what’s best for the safety of the players and their image, and a lot of times, dances in the end zone don’t fit that image that they want to portray.
IGN Sports: Why are all the TV promos the most brutal hits and players dancing if they don’t want that image portrayed?
Bill Romanowski: They’ll fine you for the big hits, but then they’ll put all of those big hits together and sell it as a “Best Hits Ever” DVD.
IGN Sports: If you could change any one rule in the NFL, what would it be?
Bill Romanowski: If I could change one rule, I would eliminate cut blocking by the offense. I would eliminate that all together. Then I would bring back the head slap. When you slap someone in the head, it messes you up for few seconds. When you’re rushing the passer, you can slap an offensive lineman or a running back in the head, then before you know it, you’re by him sacking the quarterback and he’s wondering what the hell happened.
IGN Sports: The game also features both legal and illegal supplements to improve your players. What role does that play in the NFL?
Bill Romanowski: I’m a big supplement guy. I actually started my own company Nutrition53. I have a brain performance supplement that helps you get in the zone called Neuro1, this could really help gamers play longer, play better, and help with hand-eye coordination. There is a product called Sleep Retreat that is an anabolic formula you take at night to raise all of your hormone levels so you feel really good the next day. I also have a product for pain and joint lubrication called Relief.
IGN Sports: But because of your association with Balco, aren’t you worried about getting into the supplement business?
Bill Romanowski: For me, I know this, supplements work. They’re really good for you, and I’m living proof. You don’t play 16 games in the NFL, never missing a game for 243 straight, without…that’s just not normal. I attribute that to great supplementation, and this is my way to giving back. I look forward to a lot of people taking my supplements, and soon enough, hopefully in the next version of Blitz, we’re going to have Nutrition53 Supplements. Myself and all my teammates are going to be out there kicking ass.
IGN Sports: I know your character in Blitz is the best in the league, but do you think one day you’ll make the Hall of Fame for real?
Bill Romanowski: I have four Super Bowl rings, I’ve played in Pro Bowls, and I’ve played in more straight games than any linebacker in the history of the game. You know what, it’s not up to me, it’s up to the sports writers to do their thing. I think in time, I will end up in Canton.
