Well, for starters, he was cheating.
He was chemically enhanced to the nth degree. He was the Six Million Dollar Man of steroids.
"I was taking Winstrol V, equipoise, Anadrol 50s, testosterone, Anavar, Dianabol," he told me dispassionately in an ESPN interview last month at the W Hotel, near his home in Scottsdale, Ariz.Twenty years after he was the second player taken in the 1989 NFL draft, Mandarich is 42 years old. He looks like a cross between Judas Priest's Rob Halford and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. He's still huge and looks as if he could still play. He told me he had been taking steroids since May 1984.
His older brother, John, who was playing at Kent State, turned Mandarich onto them. His usage escalated during his time at Michigan State. The rumors of steroids started to surface, but schools were not testing for steroids yet, and the NCAA tested only at bowl games. Mandarich kept beating the system. He cheated on the tests for the Rose and Gator bowls.
"I basically strapped something to my back a little -- it was actually a little doggie toy," Mandarich said in an interview that stretched longer than 2½ hours. "Hooked up a little hose to it
ran a tube underneath and put a piece of gum to cap the tube."
As a player, his legend was growing. So was his ego.
"You're not supposed to be as strong as I am. You're not supposed to be as fast as I am. You're not supposed to be as good as I am," Mandarich said in the midst of his steroid haze in 1989.
