Dr. Purrizzo is a heavy heavy hitter in the area if you know what I mean. When President Nixon, who resided in Saddle River before he died, hurt his knee playing tennis Dr. Purrizzo was the surgeon who performed the operation, and for a while was on the Presidential list of referral surgeons. I am standing in front of the panel and he starts pressing me to “admit” that I am doing steroids. And I keep answering that “I DIDN’T DO IT!“.
He keeps pressing me saying that among the panel they hold seven Ph.D.’s and he thinks they know what they are talking about so “make it easy on yourself and just admit it”. And I keep telling them that “I DON’T GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOU SAY AND I DON’T CARE WHO you ARE AND WHAT YOUR CREDENTIALS ARE, I DIDN’T DO IT!”
He tells me to take off my shirt to show the acne on my back, but there is no acne. This sort of thing goes on for a while and he finally tells me to “take off your shorts or admit to doing steroids”. What could I do, so I took off my shorts and I volunteered to give a urine sample. I had to piss in a cup in front of the panel as well as everyone else wearing only my sneakers.
He is very pissed at me and does not give me my shorts back for quite a while. This whole time one of the other members of the board is Dr. Purrizzoís friend. He is a Psychologist and between the two of them, they now start saying that they are going lock me up in for being mentally insane if I don’t admit to taking steroids. And again I say “LOOK, I DIDN’T DO IT!”.
This goes on and on. I had gone through a whole defense proving that I didn’t do it and no matter what I said and no matter what proof I presented I was going to be hanged whether I did it or not. Finally, I say “Tell me how you know that I take steroids, what’s your proof, do you have a camera in my house or something, how do you know?”
Finally after much persuasion from the crowd and from myself reluctantly, he begins to explain that he has a degree in genetics and that he has been studying my genetic code for years. He then goes on to explain how his son’s genetic pattern is superior to mine in terms of dominating DNA markers. He had been doing a private “thesis” study showing how through superior genetic breeding and steroid usage he could create a superior human being. He had a test subject and a control subject. His son was the test subject and I was the control subject.
He had been injecting his own son with steroids for years and since his son’s DNA pattern was superior to mine, his son, in theory, should have been more physically developed than me. And since he wasn’t, Dr. Purrizzo’s only explanation was that I must have been taking steroids as well, and he must prove that I was or else his life’s work would have been wasted. This was all a great theory, however, the fatal flaw where he had made his mistake was that he had assumed that I was of Italian background because my last name is “Pero“. So he was comparing my DNA patterns against the same ones he had used for his son who is Italian. He never bothered to ask if I was Italian, I am NOT. My background is Hungarian, Romanian, and Czech.
This makes all the difference in the world, and I manage to get out of there unscathed. When the test comes back, it is negative, and I tell all those involved that they can go “stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.” The whole episode is quite funny as I turned their “witch hunt” into a circus, especially my defensive strategy. For the rest of the school year, all the people who were at the trial all gave me the dirtiest look imaginable. All because I had the utter nerve to stand up for my self and say “I didn’t do it!”
This was Ramsey New Jersey, and the feeling in the air was that they didn’t care if I was falsely accused they would not stand for a child talking to them in that manner. It was all videotaped, and at one time there were several copies floating around. Anyway, as a result of this, I stop using this technique for the present time. But that was far from the end of Dr. Purrizzo. I am 18 years old and in the second half of my senior year of high school. This experience was very scary for the reason that I saw the “adult” world for what it really was. As a child, you grow up believing that all adults are “all-knowing” and are on top of things.
But as I stood there and Dr. Purrizzo is telling me that if I didn’t admit to taking steroids that he was going to have me committed to a mental institution and have a lobotomy performed on me. As I looked around ALL the other adults just stood around like scared sheep. Not one of them said a word in my defense. This was the strangest feeling, seeing the adult world as a child for what it really was for the first time. I realized then that adults are exactly the same as the children, only they are bigger. There is one bully that runs the show, and everyone else just stands around scared to say anything. Just as they do as children. Now and for the past several months’ college football recruiters have been in contact with me both by mail and personal visits as the selection process narrows. I should have been already “signed” by a major University.
But since Hyman made me disappear from the college scouts for two years by not playing me. I had fallen out of the “Blue chip athlete loop” and I am now scrambling to find a school. I am talking to two or three smaller division two and division three schools as well as Penn State. Penn State had been where I wanted to go all along but Hyman was trying to cover for what he had been doing to me by lying to the Penn State coaching staff, sending them the wrong films, telling them different statistics things like that, because he didn’t want to have to explain why I didn’t play at all as a sophomore and hardly as a Junior. Finally, he gets exposed, and Penn State offers me a scholarship for my first year and then a “full-ride” after that.
I was going to get free room and board, all I had to pay for was books and classes (an out of state student was going to be about $3000). It is the track season, at the county track meet (the championship meet). I win the discus and set the county and state record with a throw of 167 feet and 11 inches. I finish second in the shot put with a throw of 57 feet and 3 inches. AT THIS MEET I VIVIDLY REMEMBER SEEING THE TWO MEN IN MILITARY UNIFORMS WATCHING ME. They were right there, for both events and watched me set the record.