Oregon’s Geoff Schwartz pictures himself
a slimmer man at the conclusion of his
college career. He’s listed at 350 pounds, but
sees himself as a lean 230.
Former college offensive lineman Ryan Schmidt is a
changed man after ridding himself of the lineman’s diet
““ a whopping eight meals and 9,000 calories a day. Schmidt
dropped 85 pounds in just six months once he pulled out
of the lineman lifestyle and pushed himself away from the
dinner table.
UCLA’s Robert Cleary ballooned to a scale-tilting 320
pounds. If he’s going to be healthy, he says, he’ll need to get
below 280.
Over the past decade, college offensive linemen’s waist-
lines have continued to grow, leading to high blood pressure
and morbid obesity. Ultimately, the zeal for a competitive
edge comes with a price. The game has evolved, but the
standards for offensive linemen’s health have lagged slug-
gishly behind.
Linemen feel the pressure to gain more and more weight,
looking at each pound the way a rapper looks at rhymes, each
pound getting the linemen one step closer to the NFL.
“Players do see the risks,” Oregon senior offensive guard
Ian Reynoso said. “But they don’t think it’s going to happen
to them. No one thinks they’re going to die.”
Five years ago, the death of Minnesota Vikings lineman
Korey Stringer, a 27-year-old who weighed in at 335 pounds
and stood 6-foot-4, brought the heavy burden to the front
pages of newspapers nationwide.
This past summer, the death of 23-year-old San Francisco
49ers lineman Thomas Herrion, a 341-pound lineman, also
sent a jolt through the football community as teammates and
coaches were left to wonder why such a young life ended so
prematurely.
Despite the tragedies, college offensive linemen continue
to disregard the risks they expose themselves to by continu-
ing to pack on the pounds.
Leslie Bonci, who for the last 14 years has been the direc-
tor of sports nutrition for the University of Pittsburgh Medi-
cal Center and a nutrition consultant for the Pittsburgh
Steelers, knew the cause.
“It’s a phenomenon that has been
happening over a period of time, and
it’s a huge problem where lives are at
risk. Players don’t get (to the weight
they are) just by eating grilled chicken
salad,” Bonci said.
“Bigger is better: Kids are being giv-
en that perception, coaches are rein-
forcing it, and players (are reinforcing
it) to each other. The coach says to
the player, “˜I want 30 pounds on you,’
he doesn’t say “˜30 pounds of muscle.’
Coaches just want them to eat more
““ they don’t care.”
How we got here
College rosters with offensive
linemen weighing in at less than 300
pounds are becoming rare. To stay
competitive, offensive linemen say put-
ting on weight is a necessity.
College has always been a farm for
the NFL, and if the NFL demands play-
ers of a certain size, college players are
bound to respond.
“I definitely think it’s a feeding pro-
cess,” Oregon State second-year offen-
sive lineman Kyle DeVan said.
“Absolutely. That’s what college ath-
letics has turned into,” said Washington
State strength and conditioning coach
Rob Oviatt, who has 24 years of experi-
ence with related issues. “Ultimately,
it’s the feeder system from high school
to college, and college is for profes-
sional.”
Football has increasingly become a
business where young men are given a
certain image of what they need to be
in order to make it professionally. For
offensive lineman, that means bulk-
ing up.
“Players see so much mass on (pro-
fessional players’) bodies,” UCLA offen-
sive coordinator Tom Cable said. “So
they say to themselves, “˜If I want to give
myself a chance then I’m going to have
to be like that myself.’ Guys literally
train and eat themselves that way.”
In 1979, Alabama was atop the col-
legiate world with an offensive line
that averaged between 240 and 250
pounds per player. The average starter
on the offensive line in the Pac-10 today
weighs in at 302 pounds. The South-
eastern Conference features its average
offensive line at a meaty 307 pounds.
Arizona senior offensive tackle Brad
Brittain, who weighed in as a freshman
at 240, said he was pressured to fit the
stereotype of a professional lineman.
He beefed up by more than 50 pounds.
“If you’re a starter on team and you
want to make it into the NFL, you’re
going to have to be a bigger size,” Brit-
tain said. “You want to be the best, and
not just another player.”
Upon his arrival at UCLA, offensive
tackle Ed Blanton had a 295-pound
physique. Since then, he’s put on 45
pounds. UCLA senior center Mike
McCloskey, who came in at 260 pounds
as a freshman and swelled to 280, says
its old-fashioned competition driving
him to devour slabs of meat and bowls
of pasta.
“When I first came in I knew I was
underweight,” McCloskey said. “I really
felt the heat from the coaches that I
needed to put on some weight to have
a chance to block these 300-pound
tackles.”
Bite by bite
Blanton wakes up at 7 a.m. and gets
ready for a draining day. By 10 a.m. he’s
already working his pecs out in the
Acosta Training Center.
He follows that up with breakfast.
Sometimes it’s an energy bar. Some-
times it’s a handful of eggs and a fistful
of bacon.
After hours of tape and scouting
reports, Blanton heads to the dining
commons in the residence halls. If it
closes, he’ll cook at home ““ the menu
varying from sausages and steaks to
salads and pasta.
“I eat whatever I can get my hands
on,” Blanton said.
Brittain says when his teammates
get dinner it looks like an assembly
line.
For dinner, Reynoso scarfs down
three and a half steaks, a big bowl of
spaghetti, broccoli, corn, salad and a
strawberry shake.
DeVan gorges on steaks and pota-
toes. He goes home and makes an egg
sandwich with a couple fried eggs.
After eating four or five meals a day, he
gets hungry again at night.
“Fast food run. Gotta have it,” DeVan
said.
Cleary is right behind him at the
drive-through.
“I eat pretty much everything,”
Cleary said. “We try not to be too fat,
but you know it’s going to happen. We
tease each other.”
California’s nutritionist Helen Pak
uses a sophisticated computer soft-
ware program that analyzes the intake
requirements for each athlete. From
there, she determines the dietary recall
and how many calories each athlete
should be eating for breakfast, lunch,
dinner and snacks.
“A meal for a typical offensive line-
man during season is at least 6,000
calories,” Pak said. “I’ve taken food
records as low as 2,500 and as much as
9,000 and 10,000 calories.”
Pointing fingers
When asked why these athletes are
growing at such an accelerated pace,
coaches, players, scouts and nutrition-
ists have alluded to the growth hor-
mones in food and supplements.
Yet when offensive linemen’s stom-
achs fold over their waistbands and
when they are more inclined to reach
for oxygen masks on the sidelines than
cups of sports drinks, some eyebrows
raise.
The question that remains is wheth-
er high schools, colleges, professional
leagues or the individuals should be
responsible for ensuring the well-being
of offensive linemen.
Although universities have nutrition-
ists and programs to monitor athletes
such as offensive linemen, Washington
strength and conditioning coach Trent
Greener, who has 15 years of coaching
experience, feels it is the individual’s
responsibility.
“There isn’t a guiding hand, so it’s
their own personal responsibility to
stick with eating correctly and working
out,” he said.
UCLA strength and conditioning
coach E.J. “Doc” Kreis, who has been in
the field for 13 years, sees the growth of
offensive linemen as merely the evolu-
tion of football.
“The specialization has changed in
football,” he said. “(Players) aren’t play-
ing both sides of the ball, they’re more
specialized in their area. That’s what’s
allowed football to be bigger, faster and
stronger.”
Another current trend is athletes
training at a younger age. Beginning
in Pop Warner football, a league for 10-
to-12-year-olds, offensive linemen are
taught that bigger is better.
Pak sees this as a major problem,
especially at the high school level,
where there is no one to police the eat-
ing habits of offensive linemen.
“I do think that, as an administra-
tion, we’re responsible to educate
(players) for certain degrees on healthy
nutrition, but sometimes athletes don’t
follow through,” Pak said.
Elevator to the NFL
The director of college scouting for
the Carolina Panthers, Tony Softli,
stalks the sidelines in search of colle-
giate talent. Most years he reviews the
performance of nearly 1,800 players.
While the perception may be that
offensive linemen are well over 300
pounds, Softli says that isn’t the case
for him. He’s only seen one player heavi-
er than 360 pounds in the past year.
Contrary to other NFL teams, both
the Carolina Panthers and the Denver
Broncos recruit what now would be
considered undersized offensive line-
men.
“You don’t need to be 330 to be in
this league,” Softli said. “Athletically,
you look at size, but obviously bigger,
stronger, faster doesn’t mean every-
thing.”
Professional teams like the Panthers
and Broncos look for players who have
balance, lightness on their feet, agility
and the ability to change direction.
The Broncos implement an option
offense that requires mobile and ath-
letic linemen. Because of that, the
Broncos have just six linemen who
weigh 300 pounds or more. The heavi-
est is 338.
While Softli says the Panthers don’t
force their players to put on weight,
Oregon State offensive line coach Mike
Cavanaugh says otherwise.
Cavanaugh remembers coaching
Vincent Manuwai at Hawai’i. Manu-
wai is now the Jacksonville Jaguars’
offensive guard. In college, Manuwai
weighed in at 287 pounds, but the Jag-
uars pushed him up to 320.
“A lot of (NFL teams) are enamored
by these bigger guys,” Cavanaugh said.
“(Manuwai) is too heavy where he’s
playing at. They want him to be at that
weight, but to me he doesn’t need to
be.”
But impressionable rookies want to
stand out. So they adjust their lives to
being large because that is what profes-
sional teams look for.
“If you put enough pressure on these
kids, they can make a stupid, harmful
condition,” said Oviatt, who has trained
several players at Washington State.
That perception is the reason coach-
es throughout the nation are trying to
dispel the notion that players need to
be a certain size to make it in the NFL.
Washington’s Greener actually pre-
fers offensive linemen who can with-
stand 60 minutes and 80 snaps of pun-
ishment each game.
“There’s a lot of guys that fall under
the 300-pound mark that master the
find a home for them,” he said.
Though the obesity issue may not be
pertinent to the Broncos, general man-
ager Ted Sundquist considers it a major
concern. By the time athletes reach the
professional level, they would have had
10 to 15 years of football, which can
permanently damage their bodies.
“I think we’re very cognizant of
weight being an issue,” Sundquist
said. “Obviously, there have been a few
instances, such as at San Francisco. We
as a league are on top of the issue by
educating our players.”
What’s being done?
The NCAA harps on education as
being critical during the season and
the offseason.
An issue that gets even less atten-
tion, though, is what happens to play-
ers when their playing days are over.
National Athletic Trainers’ Association
President Chuck Kimmel sees retirees
falling into one of two trends after the
NFL ““ either they lose all that extra
weight or they end up gaining more.
During the season, Kimmel, who
helps train certified athletic trainers,
said that if a person does exhibit signs
of obesity a staff member should step
in.
“If one of our athletes is obese, then
I need to step in to educate them on
how to be leaner and ensure wellness
and the safety of the individual in the
future,” Kimmel said.
Bonci, who also works as a nutri-
tion consultant with the University of
Texas and neighboring Pittsburgh high
schools, is thinking long-term when
it comes to the well-being of offen-
sive linemen. They’re deemed high-risk
players and are regulated more.
But the plan isn’t to cut off all food
from players.
“We need to show expertise and
guide players,” Bonci said. “Coaches
should not be the police.”
In terms of a solution for ensuring
the safety of offensive linemen, Bonci
refers to wrestling and the restrictions
placed on that sport.
“There should be maximum fat stan-
dards, so you can’t play because you’re
at risk to yourself,” Bonci said. “Players
think about two or three years (down
the road) ““ they don’t think about four
years down the road. It is concerning
to me, but we’re making haste, team by
team, to get the message out more.”
The future
A study released by the NFL in
March 2005 reported that 56 percent of
players qualify as obese, roughly 30 or
more pounds over a healthy weight.
The study of 2,168 NFL players aged
21 to 44, by researchers at the Univer-
sity of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, also
stated that about 26 percent of football
players qualify as severely obese and 3
percent are morbidly obese.
Despite all the studies on the dan-
gerous trend, it continues.
Louisiana State’s redshirt freshman
Herman Johnson, a right tackle, is 6
feet, 7 inches, 371 pounds, and is one
of LSU’s largest players ever. Arizona
State redshirt freshman Leo Talavou, a
left guard, is 377 pounds.
It begs the question: What’s next?
400-pound linemen?
“I hope not,” Pak said. “That’s a scary
thought.”
“There’s got to be a ceiling to all of
this, and things tend to run in cycles,’
Oviatt said.
Putting NCAA restrictions in place
is not likely, primarily because body
types and heights differ.
“To make a blanket statement
wouldn’t be appropriate because every-
one is different,” Kimmel said.
What has remained the same, how-
ever, is the danger that looms over the
growing bodies of these linemen.
The football community continues
to struggle with what to do, if anything.
But all agree on the desire to avoid
another death.
After all, that’s why players like
Schwartz and Cleary are ready to shed
weight after their careers end.
JAY TAYLOR/DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
Competition between offensive linemen is fierce every time teams step on the gridiron. Over the past 10 years there has been a trend of linemen beefing up to stay
competitive against their opponents, especially in the rigors of Division I college football. Some players gain weight to upward of 300 pounds.