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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
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2 2 - 0 8 - 2 0 0 5 Mystery surrounds NFL death
The Daily Telegraph DENVER: Investigators were last night trying to establish whether anabolic steroids or other drug use led to the sudden and unexplained death of San Francisco 49ers offensive lineman Thomas Herrion. Herrion's death at age 23 has mystified teammates, friends, former coaches and family members, who said that Herrion was in the best shape of his life. They were also adamant last night the player did not use body-building drugs or even take supplements. "He didn't even like Aspirin, and neither did I," his brother, Love Savior, 32, said. "When we get a headache, we say we need to meditate. He had a calm understanding of life." Herrion collapsed in the locker room on Sunday after the team's 26-21 loss to the Denver Broncos in a pre-season game and was rushed to hospital. He died yesterday. It's not clear what led to Herrion's collapse. The 2.1m, 315-pound Herrion slumped to the floor near the end of a team prayer. The team's doctors and training staff tried to resuscitate him. Emergency medical personnel administered CPR and gave Herrion oxygen as he was loaded onto the ambulance. Denver coroner's office investigator Howard Daniel said the autopsy results on Herrion's death were "pending further lab studies" that could take weeks. "It's a day of mourning for the 49ers family," San Francisco coach Mike Nolan said. "We have lost a teammate and a very good friend as well." Herrion's death comes four years after Minnesota Vikings lineman Korey Stringer died of heat-related illness at training camp. But temperatures in Denver were only in the mid-60s. 2 3 - 0 8 - 2 0 0 5 There are freaks of nature
By JIM LITKE Common sense and science have been warning for some time that we're pushing athletes toward the limits of size, speed and toughness without regard for how they get there, or stay there. Even so, there remains no shortage of kids willing to risk everything for the opportunity. By most accounts, 23-year-old Thomas Herrion was one of those. He hung on with the Dallas Cowboys until the final cuts at training camp last fall, played in NFL Europe earlier this year, spent much of the summer working out in the sweltering East Texas heat and was chasing a spot on San Francisco's roster when he collapsed and died just a few minutes after walking off the field after a preseason game in Denver late Saturday night. The reason Herrion worked so hard to stick with the 49ers, he told pals, was so he could buy a house for his mother. The cause of Herrion's death won't be determined until toxicology tests are completed, usually about three to six weeks. He was listed as a 6-foot-3, 310-pound (= 410 kilo - red.) guard, but estimates of his playing weight by teammates and coaches at some of Herrion's stops often added between 10 and 30 pounds. That sounds big — too big to be healthy, according to some medical experts — but it's just about average for NFL lineman these days. The story of how that came to be could haunt the league for years to come. Twenty years ago, some of those same experts were warning that super-sizing pro football was a recipe for disaster, and explaining how so many NFL players got so big was easier. Before baseball was outed by Jose Canseco, football had Lyle Alzado. He played a different sport in an earlier era, but Alzado, who similarly admitted steroid use after his career was over, was just as provocative and just as certain that players on every side of him played juiced, too. "There are freaks of nature," he liked to say, "but not enough to fill an NFL roster." It's even more true today. By every measure, steroid use is down, there still aren't enough "freaks of nature" to go around and yet players are bigger than ever. When Alzado ran riot with the Broncos, Browns and Raiders in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the NFL didn't test for steroids and there were no more than two dozen 300-pounders. Two seasons ago, the offensive linemen on all but three teams averaged 300 pounds. According to this season's rosters, as many as 350 players have already tipped the scale at that weight. When Vikings All-Pro lineman Korey Stringer died four years ago of complications from heat stroke, it forced the NFL to rethink the strategy of brutal practices in brutal weather. But left unexamined were the underlying dangers — how a heart set up to support someone who should weigh 220 pounds would hold up in someone at 320. "Pick any of the body's systems — skeletal, muscular, circulatory — the same is true across the board," Bob Goldman, a prominent steroids researcher and sports medicine expert, said at the time. A few years earlier, Goldman finished a study on the evolution of linemen in college from 1950 through 1990. Over that time, they added, on average, 50 pounds of bulk. Goldman did not consider steroid use, other than to say he suspected it was higher than what drug tests turned up. "Money is a powerful incentive. If you can develop a lineman who's 6-8 and 330 with the same speed and agility of guy who's 250, who's more dangerous?" The NFL began answering the question with a rule change in the mid-1970s. Stuck with a spate of low-scoring games, the league's competition committee decided to allow offensive lineman to extend their arms to block, and stopped cornerbacks from jamming receivers at the line of scrimmage. Those changes resulted in smaller, quicker, even lighter cornerbacks and receivers. Lineman, on the other hand, just got bigger and bigger. All those warnings from experts like Goldman went largely unheeded. Lineman didn't grow to 300-plus pounds in the NFL, they began arriving that way. Not only that; many of them were not just big, they were agile — despite having 25 to 30 percent body fat, meaning they were carrying as much as 90 extra pounds. But agility was not the only thing that increased with size. So did the risk factor for strokes, high blood pressure, traumatic joint injuries and cardiovascular problems. As unsettled as we should be by what happened to Herrion — "a sad thing," Cowboys coach Bill Parcells called it, "He kind of came in as one of those underdog kind of kids and hung in there," — it's a little late in the game to be surprised. 0 7 - 0 9 - 2 0 0 5 49ers' Herrion died of heart disease
AP SANTA CLARA, Calif. - San Francisco 49ers offensive lineman Thomas Herrion had heart disease and evidence of previous heart trouble when he collapsed and died after a preseason game last month, an official in the Denver County coroner's office said Tuesday.
The coroner's findings confirmed the beliefs of Herrion's family and friends, who were certain drugs played no role in Herrion's death Aug. 20. Herrion's heart condition was caused by factors that are often nearly undetectable, though fairly rare in a 23-year-old athlete in good physical condition. "It really squashes all the speculation regarding his death," said Frederick Lyles, Herrion's agent. "They appear to be very thorough in their analysis. Hopefully, now people really get off the idea that these guys are overweight, or that drugs or steroids were involved in any way." Herrion had ischemic heart disease, with significant blockage in his right coronary artery that caused the death of heart muscle, according to Amy Martin, a forensic pathologist and deputy coroner in Denver. Herrion's heart was slightly enlarged, a condition that could be related to anything from heart disease and high blood pressure to heredity. Martin also said the autopsy revealed scar tissue from a recent episode in which blood was restricted to his heart - but Herrion probably didn't even realize it. "From the time that he died, something happened a week or so earlier," said Martin, who found microscopic evidence of organizing heart necrosis. "Whether he was aware of that was not clear. There are a lot of instances where people have heart attacks and are not aware of them, especially when your jobs requires you to do things that require you to get hurt." Herrion weighed about 335 pounds at the time of his death, Martin said. The 6-foot-3 athlete was roughly comparable in size to dozens of NFL linemen - and the 49ers believe Herrion's cardiovascular fitness was outstanding. Drug screens on Herrion's blood and urine found only atrophine, a drug administered when medical personnel tried to revive him. There's no indication Herrion's enlarged heart was caused by high blood pressure, Martin said. Lyles spoke to Herrion's mother after the report was released. "She's having some roller-coaster days," Lyles said. "She was really happy with the outcome. She's just trying to get some closure, and this will help." |
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