NewsAdamle's Return to Kona
Matthew Dale profiles the former NFL Running Back and Ironman
Published Tuesday, February 2, 2010
The one-time, overachieving NFL running back was 48 years old now. His body, once alternately muscular, lean and taut, had gone soft.
“A sloppy 215 (pounds),” says Mike Adamle.
Then he woke up one morning in January 1998 and, if he needed a reminder that he wasn’t the same guy who lasted six years as an NFL running back, this was it.
First, it took him some time to ball his hand into a fist.
“If I moved my neck right or left, I gave myself a radiating pain down both arms,” Adamle recalls. “I was overweight. I wasn’t in (terrible) shape. But everything lacked meaning. If all your life you’ve been getting ready for a season, getting ready for a game, getting ready for a race, it’s sort of like that carrot dangling in front of your face. When that’s gone, motivation’s gone.”
Adamle needed that carrot, so he picked a whopper.
“I’ve got to do something epic,” he told his former wife. “I know. I’ll do the Ironman.”
“Yeah,” his ex-wife replied, “sure.”
A longtime sportscaster now living outside Chicago, Adamle had produced numerous stories about Ironman triathletes, even riding in a camera truck witnessing the famous 1989 Mark Allen-Dave Scott Iron War.
“They were running side by side. It was mesmerizing,” Adamle says. “It was like Ali-Frazier. I can remember wondering what each of them was thinking. They didn’t look at each other, except for the occasional glance. I said, ‘I want to do that.’ ”
Days after Adamle awakened with that health scare, a World Triathlon Corporation executive called him, thanked him for his past support and offered him triathlon’s brass ring – a spot in that October’s Ironman World Championship.“I think it was like a sign from heaven,” said Adamle.
He made it to Kona in 1998 and completed the race in 14 hours, 49 minutes. Eleven years later, after having just turned 60, Adamle returned to Kona last October. Demonstrating growing older doesn’t have to mean growing slower, Adamle finished this time in 14:07:39. And that was after sitting on the Queen K Highway, according to Adamle, more than 45 minutes with a bent rim and shredded tire.
Eleven years later, racing on the Big Island was as meaningful as the first time.
“It’s a magical place,” Adamle says. “One thing people fail to realize who don’t do the race is how spiritual it is.”
Adamle recalled a couple anecdotes that reflect the Big Island’s spirituality. He toured the island by helicopter in 1998 and the company synchronized music that fit the section of the island they were touring. On the calm Hilo side, the music was light.
“Loggins and Messina stuff,” said Adamle.
As the chopper flew over the rugged volcanoes, the music shifted to the dramatic battle theme Cry of the Valkyries. “These were ex-Vietnam chopper pilots,” Adamle says, “and they wanted to freak you out.”
He remembers flying over a wide expanse of hardened lava and right in the middle of it was a church.
“It should have been totally overwhelmed by the lava. But it wasn’t,” Adamle says. “It went around the church and rejoined after it. This church is still there in the middle of the hardened lava. You’re going to tell me that’s not spiritual?”
Three days before the 1998 race, Adamle attended a service. The minister read a passage from the book of Exodus about angels leading Israelites out of the desert. “You’re going to be on the Kona coast in a couple of days,” the minister said, “and you’re going to need an angel.”
Come race day, Adamle, a notoriously slow swimmer, pulled up alongside a young man on the bike. Adamle asked the guy his name.
“Mike,” said the stranger.
“My name’s Mike,” replied Adamle. “What’s your last name?”
“Angel,” the man said.
The next day, Adamle searched to find out how Mike Angel finished. There was a DNF next to his name.
Adamle has searched for years to find the man, but to no avail. He wants to thank him for helping him finish his first Ironman.
“This guy was put there for a reason,” says Adamle, “and I’ve never been able to find him.”
NFL Career
Adamle’s time in the NFL included two seasons each with the Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets and Chicago Bears. He scored six touchdowns in his career.
His post-football career has been colorful. He was the host of the American Gladiators from 1983-89 and was the play-by-play man for World Wrestling Entertainment.
His experience at Kona in 1998 impacted Adamle forever. Hardly a one-and-done, Adamle continued to ride, swim and run. He owns two other Ironman finishes outside Kona (Lake Placid 2003 and 2004). More importantly, he has adopted the endurance lifestyle with a particular passion for cycling.
Asked what was the difference coming to the race 11 years later, Adamle says, “I was 11 years older, and I don’t think my body worked as well. There was a certain comfort level having been there before. You know all the little nooks and crannies.”
Last October, Adamle raced to raise money and awareness for his favorite charity – the Gridiron Greats Assistance Program, which raises funds for retired NFL players who can’t get disability insurance.
Says Adamle, “There are literally hundreds of former players, not necessarily stars, although they’re among this group, that are suffering from all the aches and pains from the sport they loved to play. A lot of them can’t get disability insurance.
“We’re not talking about improving their pensions. This is just to get disability,” he says. “As Mike Ditka says, it’s about allowing them to live and die with dignity.”
Adamle believes that if more of the NFL players took better care of themselves immediately after retiring, if they lost some of the weight they put on to play the violent game, they would be healthier later in life.
For Adamle, triathlon became his tool to achieve that.
“If there’s a fountain of youth,” he says, “I think it’s in the precepts of crosstraining.”
You can reach Matthew Dale at mdale@ironman.com
