Biggest Challenge for Bears? Getting Rookie ‘Refrigerator’ Down to Best Playing Weight

Want to shed a few pounds to get in shape before the summer swimming season closes and the cold winds of winter blow in?

No problem. Take one of those miracle one-week diets, stay away from high-fat ice cream and you’ll be fine.

But what if you are the Chicago Bears and you want to get your No. 1 draft choice to lose, say 50 pounds, in time for the NFL season?

“It’s something we are going to deal with but we aren’t worried about it,” says trainer Fred Caito. “Everyone seems to be talking about it, though.”

This spring, the Bears, pun intended, made a gut pick by choosing William (The Refrigerator) Perry of Clemson, considered one of the best defensive tackles available in this year’s draft.

The only trouble with Perry is his weight, and it’s been a big problem. He claims he is at 315 pounds but just three months ago during NFL pre-camp physicals, Perry weighed as much as 375 pounds. When he reported to the Bears after a brief holdout, the scales tipped--or fell over--at around 330 pounds.

During his Clemson career, he weighed as much as 390, a weight that may have affected the former ACC defensive player of the year on the field.

“We know what we want to do with him and the diet that we have planned,” Caito says. “I know that we can devise something special for him without him losing any appreciable strength.”

For his part, Perry is willing to undergo the rigors of dieting. The key?

“I can control my weight and get it down,” said Perry, who had 261 tackles and 25 sacks in his four-year Clemson career. “I can get it down and do it on my own.”

Actually, Perry considers the weight problems and attempts to insert specific weight clauses “overblown.”

“The main thing is whether I can play and I know I can,” Perry says.

Bears’ defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan wasn’t so sure. He blasted Perry and the Bears for “wasting” their No. 1 draft choice but later recanted, saying he was making the criticism to try to motivate Perry.

Perry’s weight was the No. 1 topic before the start of the Bears’ camp. It was also a key to the negotiations with Perry and the Bears.

The media--and the Bears--have had their share of fun with the weight issue with an overabundance of fat jokes. Perry probably exacerbated the situation by staging an “eat-in” at a local rib eatery after he signed, downing a reported four slabs of ribs.

But there is a more serious issue to the problem of Perry and other athletes. What is the key to the weight issue? Dieting?

“Pushing away from the table, exercise and weight training,” said Perry, who claimed he weighed 15 pounds at birth.

Caito believes it is a little more serious than that. He is an advocate of a high carbohydrate diet, something that is popular in the NFL.

“Of course, it’s important, very important to eat in moderation,” Caito says. “A lot of foods with carbohydrates are good for players with this size frame.”

A concern among observers is under the rigors of NFL training camp in the Midwest summer heat and the problem of playing in the September sun, overweight players can be susceptible to more serious health problems. This is especially true in athletes who have undergone severe fluctuations in weight such as Perry.

“I think we are going to be stabilizing his weight. That’s important, to find out what he can play at,” Caito says.

There have been oversized--call them fat if you will--players who have succeeded in professional football. Big Daddy Lipscomb, even former Bears’ head coach Abe Gibron.

“People laughed at Gibron, said he was fat. But he was the first down the field going after punts and kickoffs,” Caito says. “You can do it if you put your mind to it.”

On the current Bears’ roster, Caito says only Jimbo Covert, himself a former No. 1 draft pick, is on a diet alert. The former Pitt star isn’t in the Perry field yet but has adapted well to Caito’s recommendations.

“We wanted him around 265, down from 285 pounds, and he’s responding well,” Caito says. “Nothing drastic on the diet, mind you, but we really don’t have any serious weight problems on our club at the present time.”