Lyle Alzado was more outspoken, more controversial, more compassionate and also a bit better on the field than most of his football peers. Yesterday in Portland, Ore., the former all-pro defensive end died of a rare brain cancer he had said was caused by using steroids for most of his 14 seasons in the NFL.
He was born in Brooklyn, drafted into the NFL in 1971 out of Yankton College in South Dakota and was a pivotal player with the Denver Broncos, Cleveland Browns and Los Angeles Raiders. His rare form of brain lymphoma was discovered in April 1991, about 11 months after an ill-fated comeback with the Raiders. He had retired from the Raiders 4 1/2 years earlier.
"I had my mind set and I did what I wanted to do," he said of his using steroids as far back as 1969, when he was in college. "So many people tried to talk me out of what I was doing and I wouldn't listen."
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He said he spent $20,000 to $30,000 a year on steroids. Even after he quit football, he said he continued taking steroids and human growth hormones. He claimed steroids ruined his immune system.
"I don't think we've even begun to see the consequences of steroids use," the NFL's drug adviser in 1986-90, Forest Tennant, has said. "Alzado will be the first of a lot of big names to come down with cancer."
Alzado had chemotherapy treatment the week of March 11 and was readmitted to the Oregon Health Sciences Hospital nine days later with pneumonia. Hospital officials said Alzado, 43, died at home with wife Kathy, 25, at his side. They had been married a month when his cancer was detected.
Until he was unable to, Alzado preached against steroids.
"It was the most important message of his life," said Alzado's former coach with the Browns, Sam Rutigliano, now at Liberty University. "He wanted so badly for everyone to know where he was coming from. I don't know if the message got across. It did to me."
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Alzado's life was lively even by pro sports standards. He played on a Broncos team that lost a Super Bowl and played on a Raiders team that won a Super Bowl, over the Redskins. He boxed an eight-round exhibition in July 1979 against Muhammad Ali. "For a nonfighter, he's great," Ali said.
Alzado grew up -- and grew tough -- in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. His mother raised five children on $65 a week she earned working in a flower shop; his father all but deserted the family. The last time the father tried to contact his second son, after the Broncos lost Super Bowl XII, Alzado said he refused to take the call. Before facing the Redskins in the Super Bowl, he joked that he had been part of two gangs in his life: "the Paragons and the Raiders."
The one scholarship offer Alzado had was from New Mexico State. But that was taken back, he said, in a letter that came a few days before he was to report. The school did not want "my kind," he said. Kilgore Junior College in Texas sent him home after a tryout. He wasn't good enough, the coaches said. Yankton College accepted him, and he indicated he began using steroids there.
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"He was always trying to prove something," Rutigliano said in a phone interview. "Undersized, but dirt tough. The kind of guy you'd want to walk with down a dark back alley. But one time he stood up in a meeting and opened a big box he'd brought. Inside, was a jersey for each member of the team. On each jersey were the words: 'Bowl Bound Browns.' It was the sort of gesture that made everybody think: 'Wish I'd done that.' He was upset that I traded him for an eighth-round draft choice. I told him it was my dumb move that got him a Super Bowl ring with the Raiders."
According to the Associated Press, Alzado, 6 feet 3 and 254 pounds when he played, lost 90 pounds after the initial diagnosis.
The Lyle Alzado National Steroid Education Program, part of the nonprofit Athletes and Entertainers for Kids organization, was started to educate young people about the life-threatening effects of steroids and human growth hormones.
Rutigliano is skeptical about the positive effects Alzado's example might have. "Nobody learns," the coach said.
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