I worked out at the Gold's here in Fort Smith AR back when I was just getting into lifting. I was in awe when I would see Don there. He looked like he was wearing shoulder pads all the time...one of the biggest guys I had seen at that point. I moved to El Paso later for a few years and then found out he had passed away. That Gold's is closed now and it's been changed to a few stores/businesses that always fail. Actually that whole side of town seems to be dying out.
I knew this post sounded familiar! Then I found this one:
I actually got to see this guy train day in and day out. I worked out at the Gold's Gym on Phoenix Ave here in Ft Smith and would see him in the mornings. Unreal size; looked like he was wearing shoulder pads. I didn't know at the time that he was a pro competitor at first until I started seeing pics of him posted up on the gym walls. Drove a corvette and sometimes a big Hummer. Owned a transport company in Alma. Seemed like a pretty cool dude. That gym is now shut down and turned into some crappy insurance company.
That's cool that you knew Don.
Don was yet another bodybuilder in the 5'8 to 5'9 range who I admired since I can relate to that, and it just made me think you could be a top bodybuilder at that height. Beyond simply being a top bodybuilder - it seems almost a requirement to be something like 5'8 to 5'11 to be Mr. Olympia.
Don died way too young, and Chad even had an article in Muscular Development where he wrote about working with Don - who was clearly a very driven man [in both bodybuilding and in business], and made it clear that Don basically did whatever Chad asked him too, diet-wise. Seemingly this was true of gear as well.
EDITED TO ADD: that article by Chad was actually written after Don had died. I thought it a bit odd for Chad to address Don's death at all, since naturally people had a tendency to blame bodybuilding, and some segment of that population would blame Chad specifically, but he wrote the article, and it was published in MD magazine a few months after his death. Chad made it clear that Don would be willing to follow through to the letter with anything related to diet...so I don't think it's much of a stretch to assume that applied to gear as well. Consider that, as "Undercover Pro" said, Don probably took home in a week the $10K he won at the 2002 Master's - so I would be confident that Don spent the money necessary to get the best gear possible. Sometimes rich people need something else to put their addictions in check. Poor people just go broke. Rich people need another way to figure out they are using too much. Sadly in Don's case, it was found out due to his death.
