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Sports
15 Minutes
Jake Gould
SPORTS MEDIA PERSONALITY
Bill Romanowski winning on and off the field
Oakland, California Dec, 22, 2002 Oakland Raiders linebacker Bill Romanowski (53) celebrates a sack. The Raiders defeated the Broncos 28-16. Credit: Al Golub/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live News
4X Super Bowl Champion now tackling the cannabis industry with Halfpipe
Interview via Zoom, edited for brevity
Jake Gould:
I’m here with the great Bill Romanowski, 16-year NFL veteran, four-time Super Bowl champion and two-time Pro Bowler who is known as one of the most feared linebackers ever to play the game.
Bill, I want to thank you for your time, and I start off by asking how you’re doing today.
Bill Romanowski:
Doing great. It’s great to be on and look forward to talking with you.
Jake: Can you share with me how you became interested in football and how it led you on a journey from a college scholarship at Boston College to 16 years at the highest level with four Super Bowl rings to show for it?
Bill: Well, football started with watching my older brothers play. And you know, in that process I started playing Pee Wee football at 10 years of age. And one thing led to another, then I started playing high school football — and I remember being a freshman in high school and my first love was basketball. But I soon realized that basketball probably wasn't gonna be for me, you know because I was a forward at 6-foot-3. But I set a goal that I wanted to pay for my own college, and I wanted to get a scholarship.
I didn't know how I was gonna do it. I just set the goal, and that was kind of it. And because I knew of many times around the dinner table where my mom and dad would talk about the struggles of finances and were trying to figure out how they were going to put my two older brothers and sister through college. I wanted to take that pain away from my mom and dad.
Then my sophomore year, there was an article that came out about Herschel Walker in Sports Illustrated on how he did push-ups every single night, sit-ups, pull-ups, and sprints.
I now had a game plan, and literally from the day I read that article about Herschel Walker. I started doing push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and sprints, eating better, doing all the right things. And you know…good things started happening to me. I had the game plan. I executed it every single night, no matter where I was in the state of Connecticut. That's what I did.
And I would go to parties, high school parties, and I would carry a beer around with me, and I'd take a sip or two, but I would just literally carry it around with me because I realized that probably drinking was not gonna get me where I wanted to go.
I got to my junior year in high school, we had a guy that was being recruited who was a senior. They talked to my head coach. They said, “You know we like this [senior], but we like this Bill Romanowski even better. But we looked at his grades and he would have trouble getting into our school with the grades he has right now.” My head coach told me that. And it's pretty much all I had to hear from that point forward. I basically laid out a game plan to get better grades. And that game plan was to spend an extra hour a night studying and doing homework.
From that point forward, I ended up getting pretty much straight A's and a couple B’s. So I was on my way. And then I got to my senior year, where I had a really good senior year. And now, all the top schools in the country were recruiting me. You know: Miami, Notre Dame Syracuse, Tennessee… you name it, they were pretty much all recruiting me.
I loved Notre Dame. When I was out there in South Bend, and I basically said, “I'm coming to Notre Dame.” And when I got back and told my mom and dad about it, I could tell they weren't very crazy about that idea. But I didn't know why. It's not like I knew enough to say, “Well, mom and dad, how come you're not excited?” And I soon realized that they would not be able to see me play that often if I went to Notre Dame.
I took a visit to Miami and Miami was a party school — and it was not about school. It was about football and partying, and that really wasn't what I was about.
I took a visit to Boston College because I said, if I'm gonna go anywhere on the east coast, it would probably be Boston College. Doug Flutie was at Boston College. The program was on the rise, they were playing major schools and beating them on a regular basis. They were going to bowl games. I decided Boston College was the right place for me and I accepted a scholarship to Boston College.
Jake: Let’s talk about coming out of Boston College. There have been very few dynasties in the NFL. One of them being the San Francisco 49ers, the most dominant team of the 1980s. And that's the team that happened to make your NFL dreams come true. Picking you eightieth overall in the 1988 NFL Draft, and by doing that it meant you'd be joining a defense that featured a future Hall of Fame safety by the name of Ronnie Lott, a guy who famously chopped off his own finger just to keep playing the game.
Now joining a team that was so successful, and had such an aura of toughness around it already — how much did that affect your outlook on what football was supposed to look like and the standard of success?
Bill: I think, you know the biggest thing when you get drafted by the San Francisco 49ers — it’s the standard in which you play the game. And it's about winning, and it's about winning Super Bowls. And you feel it. Literally, day one when I stepped into that organization, I realized. In my first team meeting that Bill Walsh had with the team, Bill said, “Men, our goal is to win a Super Bowl, and nothing less is acceptable to this organization.”
Every time Jerry Rice caught a pass in practice, he scored a touchdown — no matter where he was on the field. So he would score 15 to 20 touchdowns a practice. And it's no wonder why he was one of the best receivers of all time. It had to do with the way he approached the game and practice and training.
I was looking around and watching him do that… and Roger Craig did the same thing at running back. He would score a touchdown every time he took a handoff.
Everybody's watching them. I want to be noticed. So I started chasing them to the end zone. Every time I was on, you know, on the defensive side of the ball, I would chase them down because I knew the coaches were looking at them, and I wanted them to look at me.
So, I just kind of developed a practice habit of out-hustling everybody on the field, and that was the one thing. Because it takes zero talent to work hard. That was something that was really important to me.
I get to my first game as a San Francisco 49er, and we're playing the Raiders [at Candlestick] in the preseason, and I get to play the whole second half. And there's this one play where this guy, Ethan Horton, the backup tight end pushes me in the back. And I pop up, and I run back to the huddle.
Well, the next day in the film room, that play showed up, and Ronnie Lott stopped by the door and the light switched.
He flicked on the light switch, and he said, to George Seifert, our defensive coordinator, “shut off the projector.” And he walked over to me — stood over me with a real intense look, and he said, “Romo, if I ever see anybody push you in the back and you don't do something about it. I will kick your ass.”
And he went on to address the defense and said, “Men, this is a game of respect…and if you're gonna let somebody punk you, they'll punk you right out of this league. Because every single thing you do is on film and other teams are watching.”
So that was my introduction to the NFL. My introduction to the San Francisco 49ers, and what it takes to be not only one of the best organizations but to be a great player in the National Football League.
Jake: You get in the league and win two Super Bowls in your first two seasons. Does that warp your perception of what success looks like? Is there any part of you at that point that's like, “Wow, this is what it's supposed to be like” or were you able to realize that this wasn’t normal?
Bill: Well, after those two Super Bowls I was like, “Well, this is easy. You get drafted and you win Super Bowls.”
The next year we lost in the NFC Championship Game. The year after that was the only year I didn't make the playoffs. That's when basically Joe Montana got hurt in the previous season and Steve Young took over. And then the next two years after that we lost in the NFC Championship Game to the Dallas Cowboys — both years.
We were at the pinnacle, three more times to potentially get a chance to go to the Super Bowl, and we didn't make it.
I then got traded to the Philadelphia Eagles, and the goal there… Rich Kotite was my first head coach there, and he said, “Men, our goal is to hopefully make the playoffs.”
The standard, the way they practiced, the way they did things was totally different than where I came from in San Francisco. And with all that being said, I was still playing football.
I was around a great group of guys and I had fun. I still enjoyed what I did, but I tried to bring the way we did things in San Francisco to the Eagles, and it was a little too much for one guy to do.
The next year Ray Rhodes took over at the Eagles, and he basically laid out the goals because he came from San Francisco. Ray said, “Men, our goal is to win a Super Bowl this year, period — and nothing less is acceptable. We went two rounds into the playoffs, got beat by the Cowboys and the Cowboys ended up winning the Super Bowl.
And from there I signed with the Denver Broncos, and my goal was to be with an organization that had the goal to be the best and that had the talent and the quarterback to attain that goal. And with John Elway at the helm, I knew we were gonna be in a pretty good place.”
Jake: Now, you bring up the Broncos — and I think it's another great place to transition here. As you mentioned, you tasted what it was like to miss the playoffs and you didn't want to taste that again. You go to a place in Philadelphia where they're even vocalizing that the standard is different.
There are many players that go their entire career without even sniffing the playoffs. And obviously that's not the case for you, as not only are you a four-time Super Bowl champion, as we mentioned earlier — but that also comes with an unbeaten record of 4-0 in those Super Bowls.
So, I'd like to hear your thoughts on how you approach those biggest games of the year — because with football being a game that demands consistency and the ability to maintain self-discipline, there's an element of routine that players and coaches often keep the same throughout the course of the year.
Now, obviously, of course, the stakes are much higher in the Super Bowl than they are in, let's say, a Week 4 regular season game against a team outside of your conference or outside of your division.
But all that to ask: were you one of those players who found that treating the Super Bowl like any other game helped keep you grounded in the face of that pressure? Or did you have an entirely different mental and physical approach to playing in a Super Bowl?
Oakland, California Dec, 22, 2002 Oakland Raiders linebacker Bill Romanowski (53) celebrates a sack. The Raiders defeated the Broncos 28-16. Credit: Al Golub/ZUMA Wire/Alamy Live News
"So, everything we did was about winning; the way they treated us, the way we practiced — everything we did was about winning a Super Bowl." -- BILL ROMANOWSKI
I won two Super Bowls back-to-back, and it took me eight years to get back to the Super Bowl. And I realized how special it was. And when that team came together, and we played our best football at the end of the season and we beat the Green Bay Packers who were like a 14-point favorite, and they had won the Super Bowl the year before… the greatest high of my life.
Games that stand out…I have so many. But at the end of the day, the way I approach the game is, whoever I was going up against, it was gonna be 60 minutes, and it was gonna be a battle, and it was gonna be a war. And I was gonna make them pay a price to play against me: because I was gonna be more physical. I was gonna be in their head. I was going to be in their face. And it was going to be all game long.
And that evolved, you know, my ability to be able to dominate on the football field, evolved. Because I was probably playing my best football later in my career, when I was with the Broncos and the Raiders — which is where I really peaked as an athlete, as a player.
And I played well, you know, in the early years. But I really knew how to train properly, take care of my body properly, and I was able to dominate at another level — and I had a higher level of confidence.
Jake: Which year of football do you think taught you the most about yourself — was that in the front, was that in the back, was that in high school, was that in college? Is there a specific year that you can point to a season, a team?
Bill: Probably my first year at the Broncos, because I had never set a goal to make it to the Pro Bowl. And that was the first year that I set that goal. And I was able to make that happen. Because in my mind, I used to say, well, it's always pass rushers that at linebacker go to the (Pro Bowl).
I was not a pass-rushing linebacker. I blitzed, and I was a coverage and run-stopper. So I created my own limitations there. And when I set that goal, I really set a new standard for myself that it's about being the absolute best at your position and being one of the best in the National Football League.
Jake: Now the linebacker position continues to change, right? Like we're seeing more of the East and West linebackers. I mean, you still gotta be able to come in and stop the run and plug the gaps. But obviously, the NFL has changed altogether considerably. I mean, let's just talk about it from a rules perspective.
What are your thoughts on some of the ways that the NFL has changed the rules in favor of the offense, one could say, or with the idea of player safety being in mind first and foremost?
Bill: You know what? The rules that they've changed are all about protecting the players. Protecting receivers, going over the middle, protecting quarterbacks, because…you know, without the quarterbacks they don't sell as many tickets, and they don't get as many viewers.
Is the game still violent? Absolutely.
So you know, a lot of people say, “Oh, I don't like the game as much.” Well, the only thing that doesn't happen, is you don't get quarterbacks demolished by the Lawrence Taylors of the world coming off the outside that really could hit them full speed with their helmet and drive them into the ground. You can't lay out receivers like you once could and basically decapitate them.
But when I played I'll share with you that I was probably one of the most fined players that played. Could I play today? I had the speed. I had the coverage ability. I was smart. I knew how to play the game. So actually, my style of playing linebacker probably fits this game even better than when I played. So I could play — but would I have to adjust my hitting style? Absolutely.
Jake: Thinking about that aggressiveness that you played with, it was almost as if you were like “if the rules allowed me to do a certain thing, I'm gonna play with this. But if I'm in the NFL in the new era. I'll adjust my game accordingly.”
Now, with all that in mind, I wanna ask you about playing with that aggressive style. It's a type of style where “Guys on my team, they appreciate me. But the minute I'm not on their team they hate everything about me.”
How did that feel having the kind of an approach to the game that would have teammates gravitate towards you, whereas players from opposing teams would call you a dirty player?
Bill: You know, if opposing teams don't know about you, don't care about you, you're probably not that good of a football player.
So at the end of the day, I was a great teammate. You know, I practiced harder than anybody. I set the tempo on D.
I wanted to win the Super Bowl. Period. And, you know I was always prepared. Had a lot of trust with my teammates. And as far as opposing teams, hey, I hated them probably more than they hated me.
When I stepped on that field. I wanted to hurt them. And I didn't want to hurt them in a way that they wouldn't be able to, you know, play anymore. I just wanted to hurt ‘em bad enough to where I would knock ‘em out of the game to where they could play the next week, but they just couldn't play that particular football game that I was in.
Jake: Football being a gladiator sport, I mean, it's two options. You can be the hammer, or you can be the nail. Now off the field, people don't necessarily have to be and act the same way.
Did you feel like that aggressive style that you played with made finding an off switch after a game no big deal, or did you think that sometimes it would be tough for you to go from an aggressive way of playing the game of football and being on a championship team to stepping outside of the world and outside of the game? Was that a hard off switch to have?
Bill: Being a nice guy on a regular basis? It wasn't hard for me. Being that warrior that I wanted to hurt and deliver damage…and you have to realize I had opposing offensive linemen that wanted to drill me into the ground. I had running backs that wanted to run me over. And I had to match that with an intensity level. And I built up that intensity, that hatred, whatever I had to do to get ready for a game because when I was on the sideline during the National Anthem, my mindset was you're going down, and I'm gonna deliver pain to you. And it's gonna be 60 minutes.
It took me a long time to develop that, because being a regular nice guy, that's not hard for me. But the other piece? There were certain players that when they came out of the womb, they're ready to kick ass. I can't necessarily say that was me, because you know I had two parents that you know cared about me, loved me, were good to me, and gave me a great childhood and a great life — a great start to life, and you know… I had to learn, because when you look at the linebacker position, I was like: the best linebackers in the world are mean and nasty and hit people hard.
They take aggression to a level that a lot of people can't really understand. A lot of guys could not take themselves there. And that's what set them apart. And I wanted to be great. So I knew to be a great linebacker, I had to develop that.
Jake: The back of every football helmet has a warning label that talks about the dangers of using a helmet as a weapon. To paraphrase, it basically describes that football is a game that can cause severe injury or even death. It's a violent game, and in your book you've talked about how much the game has put a physical toll on your body after 16 years.
Are there any regrets about anything when it comes to football? There's some people who will say they wish they never played.
Bill: Not me, not me. I would not change a thing. I knew that the game of football being a violent sport, there was a lot of risk to it. And I loved it. I loved every aspect of it. I trained for it. And so I had no issues with that. My whole thing was, “How do I take care of my body while I'm doing this so I have a great life after football?”
And that's what I tried to do. But eventually, my brain gave out on me. I had 20 documented concussions, and concussions pretty much knocked me out of the NFL.
Jake: Yeah, and thinking about the treatments, right? The NFL obviously has a different approach to concussions now. Are you glad to see that they have specialists that are not team employees on the sidelines; people who can set players aside to evaluate them? How do you feel about all that stuff?
Bill: I had 20 documented concussions. But I probably had 80 to 100 concussions. And I think about how I would approach it because I always looked at [being on] the sideline as a failure. I never wanted to be on the sideline. I wanted to be out there playing the game I loved.
I know the strategy that I would implement for myself today if I was playing today. I would just not tell them that I got concussed and that I felt fine. Because I don't want to end up in that tent. I don't want to end up on the bench and like I said, I want to be out there playing the game I loved.
Jake: The love for the game. When you think about your legacy, is that the number one thing that comes to your mind when you reflect on your life and career in football? What is the number one takeaway that you hope people have from the playing days of your career?
Bill: That I left it on the field. I was about winning and being the absolute best I could be. I worked as hard as any person who ever played the game. And, you know, if you had Bill Romanowski on your team, you had a great teammate and a guy that wanted to win and win badly.
Jake: There comes a time after the NFL career where everyone's got to figure out what they wanna do. For some players that's coaching. For some others, it’s getting into the business world or going back and finishing their degree. You're somebody who dabbled in a little bit of acting in some Adam Sandler movies. Can you tell me a little bit about the movies and the appearances you made on screen?
Bill: Sure. So when I left the league…you know, I have to admit this: I never realized how beat up I actually was. And I didn't realize how tired I was. Two, three, four weeks after my last NFL game, it was like. “My God! There's a whole world out there. I've got this creative brain. I've got a degree from Boston College. What do I wanna do?”
I dabbled in broadcasting. I can't say that that really was fulfilling, but I enjoyed it.
Getting a chance to do movies with Adam Sandler? That was a blast. And I did like, I don’t know…7 or 8 movies. And probably would have pursued that even more, if I didn't have two young kids at home. They needed their dad, and being on the road all the time really wasn't conducive to the family life that I enjoyed. And I enjoy being a dad to my daughter Alexandra and my son Dalton. So that was really important to me. So that kind of little bit over time, I realized, I wasn't gonna stick at that.
What was gonna be next? So I started working with a company called Muscle Milk. Nutrition was always a big part of my NFL career. So getting into a company like Muscle Milk that I could use my skill set and help with sales and distribution across the country, really was fulfilling for me. And I learned a lot in that process.
And then I started my own nutrition company after that, called Nutrition 53. So I built that up and saw an opportunity in cannabis. And in 2019, I stepped down as CEO of Nutrition 53 and branched out into this new frontier of the cannabis industry in California as a partner in Halfpipe Cannabis.
I picked football, which was really hard. I started doing movies. That's not easy. These people that act and do that day in and day out? It's not an easy life. Hard.
Starting a cannabis company with my partners, Halfpipe, that's thriving right now, it's not easy. It's really hard.
And cannabis kind of takes the cake as far as being a challenge, and hard with all the regulation that comes to that industry.
Jake: Now, there is less of a stigma than there was during your playing days around cannabis — as leagues around the country have followed the NFL’s suit by making less punishments for those who are caught with it. How do you feel about that? And does it make you wonder about your playing career and era?
Bill: Well, realize this. A big portion of people in my era smoked cannabis. So let's be real here.
And the NFL, a couple of years ago, added another game to the season to make it a 17-game regular season.
So what did the NFL give to the players for that seventeenth game? They do not drug test for cannabis anymore. They gave them that because they knew that probably 70 to 80% of the players use cannabis.
Jake: If you were a player with some of the products that are out there now… do you feel like you would be seeking out some of these THC products yourself to heal?
Bill: I do know this. It’s probably a lot safer than a lot of the painkillers that I took over my 16-year career. Probably would’ve been a lot safer if I was utilizing cannabis after a game to deal with that pain versus downing the amount of anti-inflammatories and stuff like that that I took — prednisone, you name it. There's probably not a medication that I didn't take when I played in the NFL. The cortisone shots… you name it.
So, clearly [cannabis] is something, if it's used right it can be a really added benefit versus the alternative to taking hardcore medications.
Jake: Now to kind of put a bow on things here. The stigma around cannabis is obviously becoming less apparent. One thing we're also starting to see in sports, too, is there’s increasingly more dialogue about mental health and listening to athletes who put up with a lot.
Athletes go through a lot of physical pain. There's the mental pain of it. There's the stress of it.
Based on your experiences, how important is mental health support for athletes?
Bill: Probably, the toughest thing that players have to deal with is retirement — giving up something that they're passionate about and love to do.
Time catches up with you, and it catches up with everybody — even the Tom Brady's of the world. But having something that you're passionate about and love to do?
I think the key to life is having a life of unlimited creativity that you can work towards every day of your life. And I've got a creative brain. I love to work. I love challenges. Before this call, I've been up for the last three hours dealing with a number of issues revolving around sales and distribution in the cannabis industry.
So, I'm blessed. I have a great mind. I know how to solve problems. I work really hard, and I love what I do.
Jake: For someone who obviously had a lot of passion for the game of football and looking at where you are today, it's awesome to hear that after 16 years in the NFL, you're seeking out those challenges in different forms.
Trying to tackle something else — not another football player, but an entire industry that can be difficult and full of regulations, yet also rewarding if you can reap the benefits of it.
So I really would like to thank you for your time, Bill. This has been a terrific interview.
Bill: Thank you.
