Doug Stalker was a suburban youth in New York, summer 1963, planning to play varsity football for his Rochester prep. The 16-year-old was athletic and scholarly, ambitious to learn weightlifting from the best, and he knew the place to go was York, Pa., famed workout gym of the York Barbell Company. Stalker consumed Strength & Health cover-to-cover, monthly magazine published by Bob Hoffman, York Barbell founder and coach of the United States weightlifting team.
Stalker was feeling his oats a year after his physician father died of a heart attack. Stalker pushed his mother to allow him a bus ticket, the widow relented, and he took off for southern Pennsylvania. “This was his pilgrimage,” Jeff Frantz later wrote of Stalker in York Sunday News, describing a kid’s arrival at “The Barbell” complex downtown:
He opened the door to the gym on Ridge Avenue slowly, almost reverently, and stepped into the pages of Strength & Health… They were all there: Norbert Schemansky, the four-time Olympic medalist; Bill March, the local who held the world record in the standing press; Tom Garcy, the great lightweight; Gary Cleveland, the two-time winner of U.S. senior nationals, and others.
The massive men worked on three Olympic lifts, the clean and jerk, the standing press, and the snatch, on black mats around the room. Hoffman, York Barbell’s eccentric owner who backed American weightlifting for 50 years, sat in the middle, writing checks.
Something else was at work in the Barbell Club Gym, as March later attested in interviews with Pennsylvania newspapers: Blanket use of anabolic-androgenic steroids [AAS] by the weightlifters, for enhancing power, reflex and lean mass.
“I don’t know of any athlete involved in any strength sport from the time I started in in the’60s that was not involved in some way,” March said of steroids. “It was suggested, ‘Do you want to try it?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ At that time, they were not illegal, they were not outlawed. They probably contributed greatly to my success. I was under a doctor’s care during this. It was controlled.”
In early 1959 Bill March was 22, a former prep quarterback turned weightlifter, when Hoffman recruited him for the Barbell team. Later that year he began consuming Dianabol, new steroid pills provided by Dr. John B. Ziegler, U.S. weightlifting physician of Olney, Md., and close associate of Hoffman.
March’s first Dianabol protocol or “cycle” was 15mg daily for six weeks followed by five weeks’ layoff, and so on. March and Lou Riecke—later strength coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers—were among initial U.S. lifters to receive “Dbol” tabs, Ziegler-prescribed. “I knew I was getting bigger and stronger,” March said. “It was just another supplement.”
“I didn’t stray from supervision, I didn’t have a [health] problem with it,” March said in 2005, speaking with Robert Dvorchak of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The former AAS user was 68, still enjoying life if overweight, like the majority of his old York contemporaries. “I don’t know of anybody on our team that had a problem with it. I never heard of any side effects. We didn’t overdo it. We didn’t abuse it.”
“Everybody used it to some extent. All the guys on the team took Dianabol. It helped all of them. Anybody connected with The Barbell knew what was going on.”
Bill March utilized steroids for a decade, including injectable Deca Durabolin, to increase mass from about 170 pounds to 242, topping out with a 54-inch chest and 32-inch waist. March’s 5-foot-9 physique was awe-inspiring, set even amidst the world’s strongest men. His athleticism was elite, at least on juice—he could dunk a basketball, catch a football and perform gymnastics, with 4.7 speed in the 40-yard dash.
In 1966 Don Shula visited York, NFL coach from Baltimore, among sports names passing through town from pro football, baseball, basketball, golf, Olympics and more. Shula witnessed Bill March in exhibition, tossing heavy plated barbells, finishing with a backflip, and the coach offered the athlete a trial at Colts camp. The San Diego Chargers jumped in, bidding on March for Coach Sid Gillman. The Chargers had their own Dbol-Deca program for players, under Gillman, his buddy Dr. Charles Peterson, and strength guru Alvin Roy. The latter was a Baton Rouge native and longtime training consultant of U.S. weightlifting, friend of Hoffman and Ziegler.
But March didn’t want to live in California and passed on San Diego. He signed a rookie pact with Shula in Baltimore, scrimmaged in July as a 212-pound fullback, and was released by the Colts. Bill March finished the season in semipro football, Red Lion, Pa., playing quarterback at 220 pounds, and returned to weightlifting.
***
Football players found their way to the York Barbell Club Gym by the 1940s, seeking out Hoffman and storied strongmen like John Grimek, John Terpack, Steve Stanko and John Davis, the latter an Olympic gold medalist.
Pilgrims of The Barbell included young Stan Jones, bound for college football and the NFL. Jones was a standout schoolboy athlete of Lemoyne, Pa., north of York, after World War Two. He read Strength & Health at a drugstore, devouring articles and photos, and headed for York Barbell to hang at the gym. Invited to lift weights by the greats, Stan Jones stood at cusp of some lore of his own.
Jones graduated high school in 1949 at 6-foot, 202 pounds, weight-trained and physically mature, a prize football recruit of the University of Maryland. By 1951 he weighed 220 at tackle for the Terrapins. “Jones is solid as a rock…,” said Coach Jim Tatum, “he’s very fast and an exceptionally good blocker.” In December 1953 Jones was 22, senior All-American for national champion Maryland, and weighed 252 pounds mostly lean, thick but no flab, still 6-feet tall.
Drafted by the Bears, rookie Stan Jones psyched-out linemen in training camp, ripping out pushups with a 250-pound man on his back. His bench-press number was virtually unheard of in the time. Nicknamed “Superman,” Jones was freaky strong like world-class weightlifters, his workout partners at York Barbell. “I always had an interest in weightlifting, especially since I got to know such champions as Steve Stanko, John Grimek and others,” Jones told reporters.
“Way before the 1952 Olympic Games, I decided to train for the 400-pound bench press… only 10 guys in the whole world could do it. So to strengthen my forearms and my back, I did push-ups with Bobby Morgan, the other tackle at Maryland, sitting on my back. Best I could ever lift was 385 pounds so I didn’t even try for the Olympic team.”
In the 1980s, as widespread anabolic drug use exploded in headlines for football and Olympic sports, reporters made the connection of Stan Jones, defensive line coach for the Denver Broncos, with old York weightlifting. Jones said a few of his Denver players likely juiced on steroids, but not him back in the day. “I never did, but a lot of the York Barbell guys did,” Jones told Paul Domowitch of the Philadelphia Daily News. “They made rapid gains and it spread like fire from there.”
Jones was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1991, when he readdressed his size and strength of the early ’50s. “I gained 20 pounds a year for six years,” he said. “That was before steroids. Nobody else was doing it.”
Not exactly—in 1954, athletes were getting bigger on “vitamins, frozen orange juice and hormone shots,” sports columnist Jim Grant observed that December, for the Idaho Statesman. Racehorses were doped to enormous proportions with injectable testosterone and insulin, among hormone compounds. A Spanish tennis player allegedly injected testosterone for performance. Hollywood stars used it for looks, “rejuvenation,” along with aging men in Des Moines.
York Barbell lifters “experimented” with synthetic testosterone before advent of definitive AAS compounds, derivatives of the male hormone, which began releasing in 1956. John Davis said “steroids” hit the York gym about 1950 and were offered him by a coach. Bob Hoffman accused the Russians of testosterone use at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, and Dr. Ziegler confirmed Soviet lifters injected Test for the Vienna Worlds in 1954. Hoffman and Ziegler both followed up with injections of the drug for themselves.
Stan Jones confirmed he knew Ziegler, saying the MD offered him Dianabol about 1960, upon release of the drug by Ciba pharmaceuticals. Jones said he declined the pills.
The late-Fifties press noted an NFL “barbell cult” growing around All-Pro offensive guards Stan Jones of the Bears, Duane Putnam of the Rams, and Jack Stroud of the Giants. Putnam was a 6-3, 234-pounder for Coach Sid Gillman in Los Angeles, gaining in increments over time through lifting. In the case of Stroud, his big spike in size was in 1956, correlating with release of two anabolic steroids in pill form, Nilevar by G.D. Searle and Halostetin from Upjohn.
The 6-1 Stroud, Tennessee Vols legend, was weight-trained at 215 pounds in spring 1956, with that bodyweight publicized for years. In Knoxville he joined the new gym of Joe Williams and Jim Rundell, young bodybuilders fresh off wintering in Miami, where sunny lifting clime attracted York Barbell figures from Pennsylvania. The great Stan Stanczyk, Olympic gold medalist, resided in Miami as star name for the York Athletic Club on NW 62nd Street. Vera Christensen, female bodybuilder and columnist for Strength & Health, operated a Miami gym with her husband, Jim, who developed weightlifting programs for high school football. Bob Hoffman was a regular visitor to South Florida, marketing his Hi-Proteen powder, tanning oil and weights through Miami salesmen.
Williams and Rundell brought York Barbell culture and networking to Knoxville, for their new gym on Broadway. They targeted local football for building membership, hustling up players from the University of Tennessee and high schools. NFL lineman Jack Stroud, Vols captain of the 1950 national championship team, resided offseason in Knoxville. He became instant publicity for the gym, taking a membership in May 1956. A celebrity appeared in Paul Anderson, gold medal heavyweight and York associate weighing 325 pounds. Anderson was a former college footballer who hoisted 440 in the clean and jerk, a world record, and reputedly bench-pressed upwards of 600. Anderson consumed “souped-up vitamins and mineral pills,” per a report from his native Georgia.
Stroud, rock-hard, quickly adapted to York-style Olympic weightlifting. His clean-and-jerk was 250 just getting started. A former Army paratrooper preparing for his fourth NFL season, Stroud added 25 pounds lean mass in two months at Knoxville, building strength while quickening speed and reflex. He went on to help New York win the NFL championship, crushing Chicago 47-7 for the title. “Jack weighs 240, and he had a great year with us,” said Giants owner Wellington Mara. “He is one of the best football players we have.”
Stroud continued to improve and grow larger, though not taller. Blocky massive, he hardly had a pinch of fat amidst huge arms, chest, neck, thighs and calves. He weighed 250 solid in 1957 and 260 by the early 1960s, as reigning All-Pro on the Giants line, often manning tackle. Stripped down at his locker, Stroud “looked as if he still had pads on,” commented a reporter.
The Giants leader discussed his physical transformation with media at an exhibition game in Salem, Ore., August 1958. “I had to find some way to gain weight, if I wanted to stay in pro football,” Stroud said. “I was 6-1 but weighed only 215 pounds. That’s light for a pro guard.” He recalled “fighting for my life” when “outweighed 30 and 40 pounds,” and said “beer” and eating were prescribed by Giants physician Dr. Francis J. Sweeney.
A reporter paraphrased his further comment: “In addition, [Jack Stroud] took pills with a special protein supplement.”
“The truth is that as I got heftier, I also became stronger and faster,” Stroud said. “I am stronger now than I ever have been. The stronger I am, the faster I run and the harder I hit.”
Anabolic steroids were not mentioned, or denied, but then no pro football player would publicly speak the term until a decade later, 1968, when Chargers tackle Ron Mix began discussing Dianabol at San Diego. Lineman Walt Sweeney recalled that Alvin Roy referred to Dbol tabs as “special vitamins” at Chargers camp in 1963.
“Vitamins” was favorite term of Dr. Sweeney in New York, for his needle injections to stars of football and baseball since 1944, when Giants slugger Mel Ott was hypodermically dosed. During the ’50s and ’60s the quirky Doc Sweeney gathered photographers for his injecting said Vitamin B-12 into Giants footballers like Charlie Conerly, Frank Gifford and Andy Robustelli. Sweeney said the “recovery pill” veridase helped Gifford overcome strained knee ligaments in one week, versus multiple weeks for the halfback’s return to play.
“Vitamins and a weight program” were special formula of Giants line coach Ed Kolman in 1961, for fast-packing mass on rookies. Mickey Walker was a head-knocker from Michigan State nicknamed “Toy Bulldog” by Kolman. At 5-11, Walker weighed a muscular 198 as a linebacker-tackle in college; once with the Giants, he added 27 pounds lean within months, bragged Kolman. Rookie 6-3 tackle Greg Larson, Walker’s roommate, gained 35 shortly on his frame, the coach added.
Elsewhere in football, definite doping programs were underway or pending, including for the Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers, Kansas City Chiefs and, of course, the San Diego Chargers. “Dieting seems a way of life these days… But not for the behemoths who inhabit the interior lines of the professional football clubs,” observed sports editor Fred Tharp, Mansfield News Journal in Ohio, August 1965.
“Footballers use such dodges as weightlifting, vitamins, hormone pills and food supplements to increase tonnage.”
Beyond the NFL and AFL, or football levels below, several college and school teams were doping their players, and many more had individual steroid use, according to historical newspaper evidence recovered in modern electronic search.
Up in Rochester, schoolboy Doug Stalker had skipped football for powerlifting on steroids, after learning of the drugs at York Barbell. A local doctor hooked up the teen with Dianabol scripts and Stalker weighed 212 at graduation from Allendale prep, recipient of the history award for his senior class. He used AAS for some two years, including Anavar and injectable Deca, with a goal to make the Olympics in weightlifting, but injuries derailed the quest.
Stalker quit steroids before enrolling at the University of Minnesota, where he tried out for the football team. Stalker said he didn’t hear of steroids or meet a user player among the Golden Gophers. He played briefly and continued lifting with footballers as an undergraduate. Today Stalker is retired in South Carolina, a professor emeritus of philosophy from the University of Delaware.
“I wanted to go to the Olympics in lifting, but a back injury ended that idea pretty quickly,” Stalker wrote in email. He was offered football scholarships as a youth and figures he should’ve played for an Ivy school. “I have no problem with athletes using steroids, etc.,” he stated. “The Puritans and filthy lucre now rule sports.”
“If the Olympics would not lose ad money and TV viewers, [officials] wouldn’t give a damn about PEDs.”
***
Sidney Blanks was an Afro-American youth of the 1950s, southwest Texas, coming of age in Del Rio, border town with Mexico at the Rio Grande River. Destined for fame as a football player, Blanks would forge an alternative legacy, transcending sport and prejudice to unite ethic groups and social classes.
Sid Blanks was born in the barrio of Del Rio, 1941, south of the railroad tracks, one of 10 children of Roscoe and Leona Blanks, a plumber and homemaker, respectively. Sid grew to attend San Felipe High School, among few blacks in a student body predominantly Latino. The state classified San Felipe as a “Mexican school” for segregation of minorities, although white students enrolled by end of the Fifties.
Sid Blanks amassed 16 letters in school sports, competing four years in football, basketball, baseball and track. San Felipe won large majority of its athletic contests, waxing several white schools, and crowds flocked for the fabulous Sid Blanks. Toney types even turned out to see the Mustangs Flash, 6-foot-1, 175 pounds his senior year. Blanks thrilled “Del Rioans of all races, colors and creeds,” performing as an all-state back in football, a playmaking center in basketball, a catching prospect in baseball, and a state champion in high jump.
Blanks led without trying, what with peers attracted by his intelligence, physical gifts, handsome smile and modesty. He was bilingual, attractive, helping him “connect with people and build strong bonds in his community,” stated an account. “You had to have been at San Felipe to understand how much we all loved Sidney Blanks,” recalled classmate Blandina Cardenas. “It wasn’t just that he could zig-zag and then fly like the wind against overwhelming odds [in sport]. It was this glowing, sweet soul that lit up any space he occupied.”
“Sidney spoke Spanish just like we did. He never made anybody feel anything but good. He was humble and gracious and regal all at the same time.”
Blanks dreamed of playing college football for the Oklahoma Sooners, but Coach Bud Wilkinson didn’t call. Washington State offered a scholarship, and Dartmouth for multiple sports, but Blanks decided to stay in Texas. He signed with Texas A&I College in Kingsville, near Corpus Christi and the Gulf Coast. Meeting the football players, Blanks glanced about for Afro-Americans then checked with Gil Meinke, head coach.
“You are it,” Meinke informed Blanks, lone black on the team and, moreover, the first football recruit of his race for integrated colleges in Texas. Blanks hadn’t aimed to be pathfinder, an iconoclastic shatterer of stereotypes, but he assumed the role with ease.
Just like home in Del Rio, Blanks thrived at A&I as an athlete, scholar and young adult. Racial bias or fear often dissolved in his presence. “Sidney not only became the most well-liked player on the football team, but his personality made dents on the campus,” said Meinke, white coach who also stood for change. On one roadtrip Blanks was denied a hotel room until Meinke raged at the proprietor, threating to walk with the team or worse. Sid Blanks got a room, the bridal suite no less.
Blanks was team captain of Texas A&I in his senior season, 1963, when packed stadiums greeted the Javelinas home and away in the Lone Star Conference. Blanks was a Little All-America, setting precedent to become tradition for black greats at A&I; Gene Upshaw and Darrell Green were among Little All-Americas to follow.
Pro football, however, posed a discrimination that Blanks felt was insurmountable—denying him opportunity for lack of size. Neither the NFL nor AFL wanted running backs of his build anymore, talent notwithstanding. The pros were the epitome of larger players, increasing sizes, sweeping football at every level. Blanks mustered 180 pounds on his skinny frame at age 22, physically mature and lifting weights, capable of adding but fat at that point. Or so he thought, until a pro scout proffered information—and pills.
Hugh “Bones” Taylor, assistant coach for the San Diego Chargers, took an offseason trip to coastal Texas, encountering Sid Blanks at A&I in Kingsville. “Everybody [told] me I was too small for a running back, and that’s what I wanted to be,” Blanks said later, discussing Taylor with The Associated Press. “Putting on weight has always been a problem with me.”
“He had this program for adding weight that the Chargers used and he asked my coach, Gil Meinke, if anyone wanted to try it. It included taking pills and weightlifting.”
The pills were anabolic-androgenic steroids [AAS], originating from the Chargers program of team muscle-doping, poorly kept secret, apparently. Now steroids were fanning out from the AFL franchise, offered college prospects like Gary Kirner at USC and Sid Blanks in Texas.
“I was all eager to try it,” Blanks said.
NEXT >>: 1960s: Steroid Programs for Football Players, Preps to Pros (Final in a Series)
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About the author
Matt Chaney is an editor, author and publisher living in Missouri, USA. Matt is the author of Spiral Of Denial: Muscle Doping In American Football. His work on performance-enhancing drugs in sports has appeared in newspapers, wire service, magazines, including The Associated Press, Deadspin.com, Vice.com, New York Daily News, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, Columbia Tribune, Beckett Baseball Monthly.
Email: mattchaney@fourwallspublishing.com. For more information, see FourWallsPublishing or chaneysblog.com.
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