Adam Schaeuble stands a towering six-feet, four inches tall, with broad, imposing arms and thick, muscled legs. At first glance, you'd probably think he was a football player. \nHe's not. \nNot yet, at least.\nThe IU senior began lifting weights in college, transforming himself from a 185-pound freshman into a massive 275-pound senior, garnering three national runner-up titles in power-lifting along the way.\nIn June of 2002Two days after his third nationals appearance, Schaeuble collapsed in the bathroom of his north Bloomington apartment. Doctors discovered a severe heart condition and deemed him unfit for athletic competition.\nThey told him he'd never lift again.\nSix months later, though, he was back in the weight room, with a newfound motivation of making the football team. IU, however, declined his request, as they questioned what difference he could make with only a year of eligibility remaining. \nSo, Schaeuble set his sights on a different league of competition: the NFL.
The Iron Pit\nFresh off a prep basketball career at Bloomington South High School, one of Schaeuble's first stops as a college freshman was the Iron Pit gym. One of its owners, Doug Ballard, had trained the basketball team, and Schaeuble arranged an internship with him.\n"After that I was hooked, I got the bug," Schaeuble said. "I decided I wanted to be big and strong instead of this little basketball player."\nHe began working out there and developed a love for the sport of power-lifting. As a freshman, Schaeuble competed in the 198-pound weight class. As a sophomore, he was in the 220-pound class. The following year, he was at 242 pounds.\nOne of the people Schaeuble met at the gym was Greg Simmons, a former strength coach at IU and the current coach for Team Indiana weightlifting squad. Schaeuble caught on and quickly became one of the team's best lifters.\n"He's definitely very focused, very intense when he's competing," Simmons said. "When it comes to concentrating on the big lift, you can always expect him to give it his best shot."\nSchaeuble did just that, reeling off a second place finish in his first nationals appearance, in Fort Hood, Texas.\n"I was happy just to be in the top 10," Schaeuble said. "I did all right. It was just a new experience for me. And it made me just that much more hungry to get in the gym and work. That's when my workouts started getting more serious."\nThe next year in Chicago, Schaeuble finished in second place again, losing the national title on the last lift on a questionable call.\n"In the dead lift you have to fully stand erect, and I didn't think he did. That was kind of a heartbreaker, but it was just motivation for the next year," Schaeuble said. \nThe next year, however, was more of the same, but in even more heartbreaking fashion. Back in Texas, Schaeuble went into the meet as a favorite. But, when he arrived in Fort Hood, something wasn't right. Schaeuble felt exhausted and out of it while warming up for the meet. \nIn his first squat, he lifted 639-pounds, well below his practice range. As he began to lower the weights, however, they rolled off his back, injuring the spotter and costing him the lift. \nOn the second attempt, Schaeuble again didn't deliver. \nFaced with a third and final attempt to lift or be eliminated, Simmons and other Indiana lifters rallied Schaeuble. He did it. But he could tell something was wrong.\nSchaeuble came through on the bench press, again setting up a dead lift performance for a win. He needed a 677 to win the event, to take the national title. \nHe picked up the massive weights from the ground and elevated them just past his hips. But, Schaeuble couldn't take them any further. Three more inches, and he would have been the national champion. As it was, the weights fell to the ground, and Schaeuble fell to second place for a third straight year.\n"That tore me up," he said. "Going down there, I was expecting to win, and I've always been so close. I was torn up after that, that was pretty horrible."\nSimmons, though, was still pleased with the performance.\n"He did really good," he said. "We had high expectations going in. There was definitely some tough competition. We originally hoped for a little bit more, but you hope it all comes together on that day. That's how it comes down to it."
'The Most Scared A Person Will Get'\nSomething wasn't right with Schaeuble during that third Nationals competition, though.\nTwo days later, he collapsed in his Bloomington apartment. He came to and thought perhaps it was just a little light headedness. Schaeuble's girlfriend sat him at a table and went to get a glass of water. When she returned, however, he was out again with rolled back eyes and without a pulse.\nTwo minutes later, Schaeuble was resuscitated but scared.\n"I was thinking I was dying," he said. "Honestly, laying there, when you're in that position, it's like nothing else. You think you're dying. I can't even explain it. It's the most scared a person will ever get."\nAt the hospital, doctors questioned Schaeuble several times about steroids, something Schaeuble said he hadn't then and still never has used. Doctors did numerous tests and eventually found a severe heart problem. Schaeuble's heart was a full two millimeters thicker than the extreme for normal athletic competition, much less extensive heavy lifting.\n"In a way, I'm kind of lucky nothing really bad happened down in Texas," Schaeuble said. "That kind of explains why I was feeling so bad down there."\nThe prognosis, however, was not easy to take. Schaeuble had to lose weight and give up working out. For someone who had lifted more than 600-pounds at a time, Schaeuble couldn't even do a single sit-up.\nDr. John S. Strobel, a Cardiovascular Electrophysiologist with Internal Medicine Associates, was one of the doctors who saw Schaeuble and had to break the news to him.\n"It really was fairly devastating," Strobel said. "He was dedicating his life to planning on becoming a world class weight lifter. He had spent a considerable amount of time and energy and suddenly, he couldn't do what he loved to do. We basically kind of dashed his dreams, but he understood the risks and implications." \nSchaeuble didn't give up, however. He went to the doctors and asked what it would take to clear him for lifting, no matter how far-fetched or unattainable they thought it would be. The doctors told him he had to lower his blood pressure substantially and somehow get his heart thickness down.\nAfter a few weeks, Schaeuble grew restless and went to his doctor to ask about light lifting. Rather than approaching him with solid numbers, he instead dealt with percents. \n"As a lifter, I knew if I said 'How about if I go up to 300 pounds on the squat?' to a 60-year-old doctor, that sounds like a hell of a lot of weight," he said. "To me, that's like less than 50 percent of my max. So I asked if I could do 50 or 60 percent of my max. He said that was fine."\nIn June, doctors had said Schaeuble could never lift competitively again. \nIn December, he went to IMA and was given full clearance to lift. He already had all of his supplies in the car and went from the office directly to the Iron Pit for an emotional reunion with his lifting friends.\nStrobel said he has never seen a recovery on par with Schaeuble's. \n"I never have," he said. "In fact, it was so dramatic I thought about writing it and putting it in medical literature."
A Future in Football\nThe last time Schaeuble played organized football was in the eighth grade, when he was a backup quarterback to Rex Grossman. Nevertheless, following his recovery, football turned into a seemingly obvious choice for the former high school basketball player.\nDuring the recovery process, Schaeuble had to focus on cardiovascular exercise. Suddenly, he found himself developing into an agile, fast and strong athlete, with all of his previous power to boot. During an exercise physiology course last year, the class did vertical jump drills with a machine that measured how high each person could leap. Schaeuble jumped higher than it could register.\n"When I ended up hitting a 40 inch vertical, I realized, I'm an athlete, I want to try and do something," Schaeuble said.\nEnter football.\nSchaeuble's connections at the Iron Pit again came in handy. He had previously met Doug Harney, a former strength coach at Purdue, who had worked with the likes of Tampa Bay Buccaneers fullback Mike Alstott. Schaeuble had mentioned to people around the gym he'd thought about trying out for the team, and Harney was immediately intrigued by the idea. Together, the two set forth to make Schaeuble's dream a reality. \nSchaeuble met with Head of Football Operations Dino Mangiero about the idea, and Mangiero was mildly interested, but dismayed by the fact that he had only one year of eligibility remaining.\n"In the back of his mind, I thought he might have been a little bit interested," Schaeuble said. "He called me back and explained 'I don't think it's going to be in the best interest of either side.' They wanted to work on developing their younger players, so I respected his decision. So I wasn't walking away from it going 'Man, I hate IU.'"\nBy the same token, Schaeuble wasn't walking away from football. Just IU football.\n"Just because IU football turned me down, I wasn't going to give up," he said. "I had put too much work into it already."\nBy that time, Schaeuble had logged impressive numbers in many of the drills that pro scouts look for. His best stats included a 650-pound squat, a 424-pound bench press, a 655-pound dead-lift, a 5.0 second 40-yard dash and a standing broad jump of nine feet. \nWith those stats, Schaeuble would have been wondering when he'd be drafted, not whether he'd be noticed. Harney, however, ensured the latter wasn't an issue.\n"I said 'Let's see if we can get him a shot at the combine,'" he said. "We wrote a letter and said this kid can meet all the minimum requirements and they agreed."\nThe NFL hosts a combine in Indianapolis for the top 250 college players, as well as six regional combines for the next tier of athletes, one of which is in Chicago. Schaeuble received a prestigious invitation to work out at that combine in front of NFL teams, as well as Arena League, Canadian Football and NFL Europe scouts. He'll work out as a defensive end at the May 12 workout.\nAlthough he was always confident in Schaeuble's abilities, Harney was more than a little surprised an athlete with no experience playing football was invited.\n"I look at this as winning the lottery," he said. "For a young man who has never played a lot of organized ball to be given this opportunity is pretty awesome. By him working diligently over the years, he became quite an accomplished lifter. We had to turn that lifting body into an athletic body, and he's done a great job doing that."\nHarney and Schaeuble also attended the Indy combine to watch the top athletes and get a feel for what teams were looking for. Schaeuble said he could see comparisons between some of the top athletes and his own workout regimen.\n"Everything they were doing, I felt like I could be in the middle of that," he said.\nHarney and Schaeuble are working out daily to try and prepare for the combine. Schaeuble does a number of off-beat exercises, like sprinting while pushing his car or jogging with a pair of 70-pound sand bags on his shoulders.\n"Now, I want to be the guy chasing (Grossman) down on the pro football field," he said. "I've been proving people wrong all my life and this is going to be a big one."
The Big Day(s)\nIt'll be an emotional couple days for Schaeuble come the second week of May. First, it's graduation on May 10 and then it's his football workout two days later. Even if he is going against the odds, it's just the type of situation Schaeuble has always thrived on.\n"I've always been motivated by people telling me I can't do something," he said. "I make it my goal that now I'm going to prove you wrong."\nAlthough he's known him most closely as a power-lifter, Simmons said he is confident Schaeuble will make the most of his opportunities.\n"His speed, strength, explosiveness and athleticism are right up there with the best of them," he said. "It'll come down to someone giving him a shot. Numbers and combines are one thing, but playing the game is another. I'd like to see someone give him a shot to prove himself. Because that's what he did for me with lifting"
