There are also unorthodox, sometimes unfamiliar personalities who injected color into the game, rogues who worked outside the rules and brought disrepute, and figures from related fieldsβmedia, medicine, moneyβwho profoundly transformed pro football, and our experience of it. This list is not meant to be definitive, and you could compose another, with a whole host of new names, that would be valid and compelling.
Omissions should not be considered slights. Lyle Alzado terrorized opposing quarterbacks during his 15 seasons with the Broncos, Browns and Raiders. In one famous incident, Alzado ripped the helmet off an opposing lineman and rifled it at him. With a rippling pound physique, Alzado was also the paragon of fitness in the league. But after retiring and being diagnosed with brain cancer in April , he admitted he had taken anabolic steroids from , when he was in school at the now-defunct Yankton College, all the way through his failed NFL comeback attempt in As he underwent chemotherapy, Alzado became an outspoken advocate warning of the dangers of steroids, believing that the drugs caused his disease, although there was no proof this was true.
As a Raider, Alzado was a Los Angeles celebrity, the perfect match of player personality and fan base, as he helped lead the team to a Super Bowl win in the season. And with his series of well-publicized physical altercations after retirementβonce accused of brandishing a gun after a road-rage dispute, another time accused of attacking a female deputy marshal who tried to serve him papersβas well as his cancer diagnosis and outspoken nature, Alzado brought increased attention to the potential harms of steroid use.
During the Wild West days of athlete injury and recovery, Dr. Especially in the NFL world, where a torn ACL was once a career-ender but is now understood to be a year-long recovery, Andrews is known as an industry leader.
The following year he came within eight yards of the single-season rushing record. The details of the operation, which involves a drill and gallons of saline solution, shed light on how routine Andrews has made a complex procedure seem. Quite simply: He is the man who can put athletes back on the field sooner. And while he refused to take credit for the turnarounds of many football, basketball and baseball players as well as golfers, and professional wrestlers such Shawn Michaels, C.
