Romanowski Takes Pride in Being Angry

Bill Romanowski carries a toolbox filled with pills and potions, powders and lotions. He carries a jug of clear liquid. It has his name and number painted on the outside.

Romanowski says he uses supplements and nutritional additives, all legal, so his 36-year-old body will be able to withstand massive punishment.

If it makes someone uneasy to see a box full of mystery pills being carried by a man only 18 months removed from acquittal on charges he illegally obtained prescription diet pills by putting those prescriptions in the name of his wife and two other people, that uneasiness makes Romanowski smile.

It is an uneasy smile. More of smug superiority than joy.

This is a man who speaks gleefully of filling his soul with anger, inch by inch, day by day, building up to a football game. Sands of anger filling the hourglass.

Monday he is just a little cranky. By Sunday he is massively, maniacally filled with hatred for the men who will play opposite him.

This is a man who speaks joyfully of hitting people hard and hurting them, a man who spit in the face of an opponent on national television, who has caused disruptions, ethical and racial, in the locker rooms of NFL teams.

This is also a man who has won four Super Bowl rings with two teams and who is marshaling his anger so that he might win No. 5 Sunday with a third team, the Oakland Raiders.

So Bill Romanowski, glib and scowling, full of his manufactured fury and pompous self-admiration, tries to make himself the face of the Raiders. Romanowski is promoting himself here as the black-and-silver Al Davis superhero, as the last and most needed piece to this Super Bowl puzzle.

Romanowski tells the story of his coming to Oakland over and over. And over. It doesn’t change.

Shortsighted Denver Coach Mike Shanahan tells Romanowski early in training camp that while he, Shanahan, knows Romanowski deserves to be the starter, he, Shanahan, is going to give younger linebackers most of the reps in practice. If these younger linebackers do well, they will start. If not, Romanowski will start.

Of course, Romanowski, man that he is, can’t accept such blatant bias. He says, after hearing this devious plan, that “I called my agent within 10 seconds and told him to get me out of Denver.”

Then, Romanowski says, he dialed his cell phone again. He called Davis. He spoke to Davis’ assistant. “Tell Mr. Davis that I’d like to help him win another Super Bowl,” Romanowski recalls saying. Then Romanowski turned off his cell phone. For half an hour.

When he turned the phone on again, Romanowski says, a message from Davis’ secretary was waiting.

“She said, ‘Mr. Davis thinks you’d look good in silver and black,’ ” he recalls her saying.

The moral of the story?

“The Raiders were missing something on defense,” Romanowski says. “Me.”

It is uncomfortable listening to Romanowski talk about himself, about how he works on his body three or four hours a day.

As he speaks, it’s impossible not to think about the unseemly episode with the prescription drugs.

It is uncomfortable listening to him describe how hard he hits and about his fury and anger and passion, about how he doesn’t care what others think about him, how it is a good thing to be hated. “If no one likes me,” Romanowski says, “it means I’m doing something right.”

Something right as in spitting in the face of San Francisco receiver J.J. Stokes on a Monday night in full view of a national television audience? Was that right?

Or was it right the way Romanowski broke the jaw of quarterback Kerry Collins in 1997? It was an exhibition game. Friends of Collins who were at the hospital say that Collins’ smashed jaw was the most gruesome thing they had ever seen.

Reminded of the hit, Romanowski shrugs. “This is a violent sport,” he says. “It’s not a friendly game. I’m not a friendly guy.”

It is an uneasy moment, listening to Tim Brown, one of football’s classy guys, a man who has played hard and well for the Raiders, who has not embarrassed himself, his sport or his team, say that Romanowski might sometimes go over a certain line of behavior but that, “he’s also brought us a toughness on defense that we’ve been lacking.”

Romanowski continues on in his recitation of his strength and valor and bravery.

For him, life is about his body, about his weightlifting routine and his personal hyperbaric chamber, about his daily massages and three-hour personal workouts and his acupuncture and drinks and pills.

“This makes me a good teammate,” Romanowski says.

But the mind drifts. Romanowski’s spitting on Stokes created a racial tension in the Bronco locker room that lingered until Romanowski left. Sports Illustrated once reported that Romanowski was distributing some of his diet aids to white teammates and telling them they needed the pharmaceutical help to keep up with the African American athletes.

“I think this year I was meant to be a Raider,” Romanowski says. “It’s been a nice fit. People say my style of play fits the reputation of what a Raider player is all about. I’ve always been one of the most hated players in the league. Now I’m on one of the most hated teams. That’s what it’s about, finding your place.”

That place is an angry place, a place where inflicting pain is the most important thing. Everything in Romanowski’s life is aimed at him finding that place every Sunday. He’ll be in that place this Sunday.

The perfect Raider, just ask him.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.