Ex- “American Gladiator Tell Steroid-soaked tale”
Posted in Book, Reviews on February 6th by Dan.
I just received my first official review. And it’s a good one. I guess that means I’m actually on author now. The Associated Press Review of GLADIATOR by Dan Scheraga gets the dubious honor of being my first. It begins…
Most super heroes suffer a radioactive accident or lightning strike or some other violent tragedy that changes them from normal people. For Dan Clark — better known as one of the titular combatants of the athletic TV game show “American Gladiators” — that event was watching his older brother get electrocuted to death at age 10.
“Randy was big. Bigger than I could ever be,” Clark writes. “If he died, then what in the world was going to happen to me?”
That and other childhood traumas, any one of which might have unhinged an ordinary person, lead Clark to seek solace on the football field. A gifted athlete, he finds the validation there that his family life frequently lacks, and he soon grows dependent on the cheering crowd. He also covers up his feeling of vulnerability with a thick shield of muscle.
But when a hamstring injury threatens his dreams of a pro football career, a gym partner suggests an unfamiliar short-cut to recovery: steroids. Over time, they prove to be both the key to his success and the source of his destruction.
Sadly, the chemicals he injects are not enough to save his football career. But in 1989, he finds his niche as the spandex-clad, tough-talking, hard-hitting Nitro on the then-new show “American Gladiators.” In front of the camera lens as well as a live studio audience, Clark basks in the fame and adulation he only got a taste of in football.
He soon finds himself living the high life, sleeping with porn stars and partying with celebrities including his hero Lyle Alzado, the legendary defensive end who would later die of illness he attributed to steroid abuse.
And…
Clark resists depicting himself as a victim, although he is deeply critical of the athletic system which he says turns a blind eye to steroids. He also describes a tough-guy mentality among athletes that enables them to keep abusing steroids even as their bodies rebel.
“I know somewhere deep inside I’m giving pieces of (my body) away … but this Faustian bargain isn’t something athletes want to deal with. We don’t want to know,” he writes. “We’re used to pain. … So when you get the inkling that something is wrong, you do not give in, you do not quit.”
At the first audition I went to in Hollywood the casting director told me I should go home should go home. That I would never work because I was Amerasian. She said, “People either want white or Asian, not a mix of both.” Twenty years later don’t know where she is, but I can proudly say, I’m still here.
When I started writing, people again told me all the reasons I’d never work.
All I can say is, “I’m still here baby!”
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