Bill Romanowski | Romo

My beautiful wife, Julie, and me at Jessica Biel’s event for the Children’s Miracle Network and Oakland Children’s Hospital.  We are both looking forward to continued community outreach throughtout 2009.

Super Bowl XXXII, I was with Denver playing the Packers and we went in as the underdog.  Actually we went in as wild cards. Reminds me of the Cardinals going into the Super Bowl this Sunday.  The Cardinals are going up against the mighty Stealers, the number one defense in the league.  This is a team that came from no where.  No one thought they could win.  No one thought they could beat Carolina, no one thought they could beat the Eagles and now they are playing in the Super Bowl.

The key to this team right now is is Curt Warner.  From grocery boy to arena football to the best show on earth with the Rams, Super Bowl MVP, winning one super Bowl, losing one Super Bowl.  He brings a belief to the Arizona cardinals that if they play together as a team they can win.  That belief got stronger and stronger towards the end of the season. 

It’s why they say you gotta play the game, because no one would have thought the Cardinals would even had a chance at making it to the Super Bowl.  Now they not only made it, but I think they have a a great chance at winning the Super Bowl. 

Great players play great in big games.  Curt Warner is going to have the Stealers defense attacking him from every direction.  Look for him to have an outstanding game utilizing the quick passing game, and running the football with Edgerrin James.  I’m really looking forward to this game, I always love rooting for the underdog.  Look for a huge upset with the Cardinals winning on the last second field goal to win by 1 point.

I’ll end my story with congratulations to the Cardinals for making believers out of your team, teammates, organization, city, the league, the country, and the world. Go get yourself a Super Bowl ring.

Recently a reporter in an interview asked me this question: “In what ways did winning the Super Bowl improve your life?”

I wanted to share my answer with you. Here is how winning a Super Bowl changed my life:

As a child I spent many hours dreaming of becoming a professional football player and playing in the Super Bowl some day. I am living proof that dreams do come true to those who believe and work hard. It gives me the confidence and drive every day to continue dreaming and believing that I can change the world with a great team of people around me. That’s what I was able to do 4 times as NFL star with great coaches and teammates. Now as the CEO of Nutrition53 I am leading a great group people and guiding them and helping them believe they can become World Champions in the nutrition industry. So it starts with a dream and takes a lot of hard work, dedication, love, passion and believing in your team to change the world. That is not just my dream but my promise!

AFC and NFC Championship Games . . . Wow!  Does football get any better than that?  How exciting to see a team like Phoenix, who has never been to the Super Bowl, or even two-rounds in to the Playoffs, beat the Eagles the way they did.  Hats off to Curt Warner and the team!  Curt Warner raised the level of talent around him to have the guys finally believe that they can win a Super Bowl.  And now they get to play the mighty Stealers in two weeks for the Super Bowl Champs. 

Congratulations Cardinals!  Good luck, and most importantly, don’t forget to believe in yourself and your teammates and you need realize it’s going to take every one of you to give it up for one another to get the job done.

How about the Stealers vs. Raven game?  Like I said in my interviews, I thought it would be one of the hardest hitting football games every played and I think that’s exactly what it was!  Low scoring game . . . defense wins Championships.  Hats off to the Stealers for getting the job done, Ben Roethlisberger for leading his team to Victory and to Mike Tomlin as a second year Head Coach.  Getting his players to believe that they could do something special.  The Stealers are an inspiration, they do it the way football is supposed to be played: hard-hitting, intensity, action packed, leave it all on the field, knock the crap out of people, win in the trenches, dominate the line of scrimmage, kicking ass and taking names . . . the Stealer way.

Look for a Cardinal-Stealer Super Bowl to be an outstanding game.  The key to the game is for the Cardinals to avoid being awed by the Stealer team.  They need to go out there and execute.  The Stealers just have to go out there and do what they’ve done all year long.  At the end of the day, both teams have to realize this is just an Away Game at Tampa Bay . . . not the Super Bowl.  When you focus on the Super Bowl, you focus on something different, something grander, than just an old fashioned football game.  They need to focus on what got them there and that was playing great football.

Good luck to both teams, I look forward to an outstanding football game.

Want my prediction? Cardinals beat the Stealers on the last drive by three points. 

As many of you know, recently there has been a turn over of Head Coach at the Denver Broncos. 

I have a deep appreciation for the Denver Broncos Organization, and after talking with my good friend Pat Bowlen, the owner of the Organization, my mind became overwhelmed with a new game plan to help the Denver Broncos build a new football dynasty.

I have to admit that I really enjoyed the excitement, mental exercise, and possibilities involved in this project.  Just thinking about the way I used to train and approach recovery, and also about the innovations I would like to see in the NFL.  Just dreaming about the perfect performance center in an NFL team, the function, and the possibilities of being the Head Coach of the Denver Broncos was exciting.

With a great support and the right Offensive and Defensive Coordinators, there is no doubt in my mind I could motivate and empower the staff and team.  I just feel in my heart that the energy in Denver would be electric and I could help make the Denver Broncos unstoppable. 

It’s quite a fantasy, on one level, because I really love what I do at Nutrition53.  I love being in the health and fitness industry, I love my employees, and I love the challenge each and every day of working to become a top CEO.  But being the dreamer that I have always been, I guess I will have to settle with the fact that I have two passions in business.  Those being how I made a living in football for 16 years, and nutrition/performance.  I get to live a blessed life and I am very thankful every day.  And I couldn’t do it without my great family; my wife that supports me, and our two gifts from God, our kids Dalton and Alexandra.  I know I may drive them crazy at times. 

After all the hype, being on the AP wire, and having a long talk with Mr. Bowlen, I have presented him with 30 pages outlining my visions of building a football dynasty.  You never know.  Realistically, I’m probably not the typical head coach candidate for him, but maybe a strong candidate as a performance coordinator.  With someone as innovative and as ”out-of-the-box” type of a thinker as Mr. Bowlen, I won’t rule out the possibilities.  He’s the type of guy who did Ironmans in the 80’s, before Triathlon was popular.  He’s the kind of guy that would potentially implement a type of program such as the one I suggested.

As it sits, it would just be icing on the cake because I am so happy here at Nutrition53 with my family and employees out in California.  But I would welcome the opportunity and feel great excitement at the possibilities of dreams becoming realities while coaching in the NFL.

Surfing legend Nat Young had some words of wisdom as we were surfing together out at “The Lane” in Santa Cruz last weekend.  Head-high to ten-foot surf was heading through and it was fairly crouded.  Nat said to me “There is really one perfect place to catch a wave. Where the energy aligns with where you are.  You see all these people around here that don’t know what the heck they are doing.  It’s very important that on your way down the wave you breath out on the way up the wave you breath in.  There is a rhythm to it.  There is an energy and peaceful rhythm that connects you with the ocean and connects you to being present. There are a lot of guys who go out there and just charge go go go and they don’t take in the pure essence, the beauty, the passion, and the love that surfing has to offer.”

So me being a sponge for any words of wisdom that a legend like Nat had to share, I saw a huge set coming in of ten-12 foot and what do you know . . . I was in that perfect space.  When I went down the wave I was breathing out, and when I went up the wave I was breathing in.  When I got off the wave about 50-75 yards later, I sat there and thought, “I have never felt that on a wave.”  I have never been that present to really recognize my breathing on every up and down on the wave.  Feeling th energy, connecting in a sport I truly love and am passionate about. 

Thank you Nat. It reminds me of a story I once heard and it’s a story about a young bull and an older and mature bull up on a hill looking down over hundreds of young female cows.  And the young bull being all excited says to the mature bull “lets run down the hill and hop on one of the heffers.”  Excited and gitty as all get-out.  The older and mature bull says “Why don’t we walk down the hill and hop on them all?”

As I think back to my sport in football, and as I think about the wisdom Nat and the mature bull shared.  As a young impressionable line-backer in the NFL, all I wanted to do was run all over the place and hit anything that moved.  When I truly got to where I understood my position and everyobody elses positions around me and where I fit in within the team, I realized that as a young pup I truly had no clue about what I was doing.  And only as I matured and I learned my roll not as only as a linebacker and a leader did my career start to take off.

I am disheartened to hear a bunch of NFL guys have tested positive for water pills.  First of all, if they are taking them to lose weight, there is not a dumber way to lose weight than to drain your body of its most precious element - water.  There is nothing that will hurt athletic performance like being dehydrated. 

Secondly, if they are trying to mask a anabolic with a diuretic, they are playing Russian Roulette with their lives, with their families, and with their integrity.  I’ve said it in my book , I’ve said it on 60 minutes, and I ‘ll say it again right now: that is the wrong way to go about being an athlete.

Click here for the full story.

With the current state of our economy, it’s obvious alot of people are falling on tough times.  I am an athlete, not an economist, but it’s clear to me that many of these problem came about because people entered agreements they could not honor, for a variety of reasons.

I have a very good friend who runs one of the largest sports nutrition companies in the country right now who told me something in confidence.  Out of excitement for the ideas and opportunities, I slipped and mentioned what he shared with me to someone else. I broke trust with someone who means an awful lot to me. 

I apologized, and I meant it. I paid a major price for mistake, and it was something that meant a lot to me. And I’ve learned from it and truly will try to focus on my integrity, focus on my word when I give it to somebody, and I had to learn this the hard way.  This has happened before and now this has happened again, and I am sure, at one point or another, it is something that has happened to all of us.  This is something I need to put to work in my business life and my personal life with my friends and family. 

We are a society that sometimes gives our word loosely.  I think there was a time when you didn’t go to an attorney everytime you were going to do a deal with someone.  A lot of times you looked someone in the eye, gave them a handshake, and you did business.  Now there is an attorney on every corner looking to screw somebody.  I dno’t mean to give attorney’s a bad name, but I wish we could eliminate suing from our vocabulary and get back to giving words that mean something.  That is something I am giving today.  My word will mean something. 

Take that to the bank. 

My good friend Tracie Bennett is a photographer for Dave Matthews.  Tracie let me know that Dave Matthews would be playing at the outdoor Greek Theater in Berkeley.  He talked to his assistant Brett and they managed to hook me up with back stage tickets to the show. 

For me personally, I did not know much about Dave Matthews prior to the concert.  Maybe that’s part of being absorbed in the NFL so intensely and for so long.  So when we went to the concert, I really didn’t know what to expect.  But his music was so moving, and I was very impressed with meeting him.  He really is a class act.  Julie and I decided to bring Dalton and Alexandra so they could meet Dave and enjoy the concert as well.  We brought him a care package of Neuro1, Sleep1 and Lean1 and left it in his trailer for him to enjoy later.  I am really excited to get some feedback on that.  Having great seats and watching him perform, I can clearly see why Dave Matthews has the reputation he does.  He has a great band and his music is just really cool.  It just puts you in a certain place, I kept saying, “I like this song” to everything he played.  The whole evening was perfect.  Loved the music, had a phenomenal time, then we went and got some frozen yogurt in downtown Berkeley.

So my first of hopefully several Dave Matthews concerts was an awesome experience and I can’t wait to see him again.  Thanks Brett and Dave for sharing your show with me and my family.  We will always be grateful and look forward to taking care of you with Nutrition53 products to make your life even better.