Bill Romanowski entered the room ready to talk about life after football…
Ryan Thorburn-Camera Sports Writer
May 20, 2005
Bill Romanowski entered the room ready to talk about life after football. A Hollywood ending.
The former Denver Broncos linebacker didn`t really want to pack all of the extra baggage he carried during a 16-year NFL career to the interview – there weren`t enough bell men on staff at the meeting spot in a LoDo hotel, anyway – so instead Romanowski brought his psychotherapist.
Check that, performance-enhancement coach.
Hello, I`m Phil Towle, the popular and expensive celebrity mental guru said. Do you mind if I sit in?
Why not? After all, Towle certainly made the Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster unforgettable as the band paid him a reported $40,000 a month to save the legendary hard rock act from sinking to rock bottom. He also helped the always-emotional Dick Vermeil get over some mental hurdles in 2000 when the longtime head coach guided the St. Louis Rams to victory in the Super Bowl.
There are many who view Romanowski as some kind of monster. He certainly made other players, even some on his own team, fear him. And he gave fans, even in Denver, plenty of reasons to hate him.
Playing for the Raiders was a special time, Romanowski said with a smile. He was cut by Mike Shanahan after the 2001 season and signed with rival Oakland. It came at a time where I needed something to fuel me, a new challenge, something to get back at the Broncos for. It was perfect.
Perfect? Nothing is perfect, right Dr. Phil?
Not that I have any problems with the Broncos, Romanowski continued. Denver is home to me; that`s how I consider Denver. … It seems like (Broncos fans) have forgiven me.
There is much to forgive. Romanowski`s controversial career included a laundry list of incidents that seemed to get more disturbing over the years, including:
Leveling the legendary Jerry Rice during a non-contact drill at a San Francisco 49ers training camp in the 1980s.
Breaking then-Carolina quarterback Kerry Collins` jaw during an exhibition game with the Broncos in 1997.
Spitting in the face of 49ers wide receiver J.J. Stokes during a Monday Night Football telecast in 1997.
Being tried and eventually acquitted by a jury in 2001 on charges of obtaining illegal prescriptions (written for his wife and two other people) for diet pills, which investigators said he used to enhance his play during the Broncos` 1998 Super Bowl season.
Fracturing the left eye socket of Raiders teammate Marcus Williams, who was awarded $340,000 in damages from a jury, during a training camp fight in Oakland before the 2003 season.
Testing positive for the steroid THG in 2003, which led to him testifying before a federal grand jury in 2004 during the investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.
Sounds like Towle has his work cut out for him as Romanowski – who was released by the Raiders after failing a physical last spring – attempts to move on.
It was like I had a new life, Romanowski said of finally taking a deep breath with the realization that he had played his last down of professional football. For so long, in pushing myself the way I did … the fatigue was so great that I found myself being more reserved to where I didn`t have a lot of energy to put toward relationships and talking to people. I`d get home at night and I didn`t have a lot left for my wife and kids. I find now that it`s something that I really enjoy is getting to know people, getting to know my family again on a much deeper level.
This new Romanowski, believe it or not, is a member of the Screen Actors Guild. His first role was a relatively big one, playing the character Guard Lambert in the remake of the 1974 classic The Longest Yard, which opens next Friday. He has already acted in a second film that has been shot, Bench Warmers, another Adam Sandler project.
Robert De Niro and Tom Cruise certainly don`t have anything to worry about, but Romanowski says he is approaching acting as seriously as he did football.
It came at a perfect time, because when I would have been getting ready to put cleats on and a helmet and shoulder pads, I was putting them on for a movie. And in some ways I was doing a lot of the same stuff that I did out on the football field,Romanowski said. Now I was just going against actors and arena football guys and comedians and different people. But I tried to take that same intensity, that same work ethic, that same desire to be the best, I tried to bring that to the set each and every day.
Former Dallas Cowboys star Michael Irvin is also in the film, as are professional wrestlers Bill Goldberg and Steve Austin. But the person Romo was naturally drawn to was Brian Bosworth, the flamboyant former All-American linebacker from Oklahoma whose NFL career was cut short due to injuries.
The Boz and Romo. Sounds like a violent buddy picture.
Every part of who he was was wrapped up in football. And that was his identity,Romanowski said of Bosworth, who has appeared in 10 movies since limping away from the NFL. He struggled for quite a long time. I think still today he struggles with having his career cut short. We connected on the movie set, just talking about his challenges and me talking about what I went through. I`m fortunate in that way that I got to live my dreams.
Romanowski admits that dream lasted too long and that some of the nightmarish decisions he made near the end were the result of a desperate man trying to hang on to a job in a young man`s game.
I played 243 straight games and I probably should have quit three years sooner,Romanowski, now 39, said. But my personality, driven by fear and insecurity, drove me to keep slaying more dragons. To play until I was 40 is really what I was pushing for. And I wanted to play in more games straight than anybody in the history of the game. That didn`t happen.
Taking a step back a month after I was finished playing, two months after, I realized the harder I pushed the more I crossed the line. And the more I realized I was getting further and further away from who I am as a person.
Towle had to be pleased with Romanowski`s response when his client was asked if there was any desire to join an NFL team for a minicamp workout this week.
None, he said. There is no part of me … I enjoyed my time and I feel to be able to play in the NFL is a privilege and it was an honor. Lot of lessons learned, and I`m truly fine with not playing any more.
Mentally, Romanowski is obviously feeling pretty good and open to help. But physically, despite the fact that moviegoers will see him making tackles and denting a locker with his forehead, there are still some very serious obstacles for him to overcome.
Even something as innocent as going on vacation can quickly turn into a frightening experience.
I`m fine as long as I don`t hit anybody or anything. Put it that way, Romanowski said. I had a couple problems happen in the movie that kind of stirred up the problems that I had on the field with concussions. My family and I were at (Disneyland`s) Magic Mountain in L.A. about a month ago … went on a couple roller coaster rides, and you would have thought I just got a massive concussion in the game. I was kind of lightheaded, kind of woozy, nauseous, just mentally not as sharp. I could feel all the symptoms come right back.
Ironically, the last and most severe concussion of his playing career was sustained at Invesco Field on Sept. 22, 2003, while wearing the silver and black. The Broncos won the game and Romanowski was booed, but he doesn`t remember those details. The night it happened, it was scary, he said. I dealt with it my whole career, but really not on a level that it got out of control until about my last three years of playing. It got to where every time I would get a good hit on somebody, any kind of helmet to helmet contact, I was getting dinged and it was getting more and more frequent.
It started to get real scary. But the warrior, the guy that is always pushing, ready to slay the next dragon, just kept trying to block it out and block it out. I ran out of block outs. I ran out of carpets to brush it under. I couldn`t do it anymore.
And so it`s on to Hollywood. A new beginning for Romanowski.
I don`t know if there is even a ‘D` list in acting, he said. But there`s different lists of people, and I want to be one of the best.