Written by Ron Harris
07 February 2017

17harrisfiles-tomplatzpart2

A Star Profile: Tom Platz - The Golden Eagle Interview Part 2

 

 

Some of the men that had the greatest impact on bodybuilding never won a Mr. Olympia title. You all know Flex Wheeler, Kevin Levrone, and Shawn Ray – three of the best physiques the 1990’s produced and every bit as respected as Dorian and Ronnie. In the 1980’s, Rich Gaspari and Lee Labrada were two others that changed the sport and were bigger stars than some of the men that held the Mr. O title in that decade. Yet none of these men had the profound influence that Tom Platz did. No bodybuilder before or since came on the scene and instantly made it imperative to develop a bodypart far beyond what had been seen and expected for decades. Before “The Golden Eagle,” there was never a shortage of big arms, shoulders, backs, or chests; but extreme leg mass had never existed. As soon as Tom arrived as a new pro in 1979, the bodybuilding world was both shocked at the amazing lower body he displayed, and immediately awakened to a new possibility of what could be achieved. The sport would never be the same again, and a whole generation took to the squat rack with a new purpose and new goals. Though Tom never won a pro show, he was one of the most popular guest posers of the 1980’s and went on to grace the covers of 25 magazines. Since retiring from competition over twenty years ago, Tom has gone on to teaching, writing, sales, and even a brief stab at acting. I relished the opportunity to speak to the legendary Golden Eagle at last about his career, what he thinks of today’s sport, and much more.

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What’s your training like nowadays? How is it similar to what you did in your competitive prime, and how is it different?

TP: I’m 53 years old now, and my goals are no longer the same. I train three times a week now, and my top weights now would have been warm-ups back in my competitive years. But I don’t dwell on the past and I don’t want to revisit it. My main focus now is to live a long and healthy life, not to squat 405 for 50 reps. I certainly do a lot more cardio now than I ever did in the past.

 

That leads me to also ask, if you knew then what you know now, what would you have changed about your training and nutrition, if anything?

TP: Well, I made a comeback in 1995, getting in great shape again for photo shoots and appearances, and I realized that by eating more healthy fats and by not training quite as hard, I got better results than I had before. Too much of anything is counter-productive, and I used to push the intensity to places where it was probably doing more harm than good at times.

 tomm3

Some of the men from the 70’s and 80’s complain that on average, the pros these days just don’t train as hard as they did. Do you think that’s true?

TP: Since I haven’t really seen many of these guys train, I can’t comment. I heard that Ronnie Coleman was squatting 800 or 900 pounds right before the Olympia in one of his DVD’s. From all accounts, he always trained quite hard. Some of these guys today are 300 pounds on stage. Back in my day, anything over 200 was considered a pretty big guy. I know the drugs have something to do with it, but for these men to carry the mass they do, they have to be putting in a lot of hard workouts. Drugs don’t build superhuman mass out of thin air.

 

Some of your feats on squats are still spoken of with reverence in our sport: 315 (405?) for 50 reps, squatting with 225 for 10 minutes straight – how were you able to fight through all that pain and finish those sets when it must have been more than tempting to quit at some point?

TP: Squatting was its own activity to me, apart from my other training. That came from my college years back in Michigan. We had a lot of great athletes back there, and many great squatters. Every year we would have ‘squat-offs’ for weight, for reps, all kinds of things. Winning was a matter of pride, and I didn’t always win. But that’s where I learned how to work harder than what anyone would imagine was possible, how to block out pain and go into a zone. Really, I can’t say enough how much mental rehearsal ahead of time was the key. If you see something happen in your mind and you firmly believe you can and will do it, nothing can stop you. Another thing I should mention with my leg training was that early on in my pro career, Frank Zane told me to focus on making my legs as crazy as possible. He said that would set me apart from everyone else and make me unique. Frank has always been a wise man, and he was right on with that advice.

 tomm3b

I’ll say. Who were your best friends while you were competing, and who do you stay in touch with still?

TP: I still talk to Aaron Baker, Gary Strydom, Ed Corney, Frank Zane, and Shawn and Flex. As for the others from the old days, I guess we have all gone our separate ways.

 

If you had never become a bodybuilder, what other paths do you think your life could possibly have taken?

TP: My three loves were bodybuilding, music, and cars. I actually played guitar in a rock band as a teenager, and I have always been into fast, powerful automobiles.

 

You’re actually in the auto industry now, are you not? How did that come about?

TP: Three years ago I left Los Angeles for Scottsdale, Arizona to retire. But I just couldn’t see myself playing golf all day, every day. I took my car into the local Chrysler dealership to get serviced. The owner knew me, and we got to talking. He offered to send me to the Chrysler Motivational Training Center for a month, and I absolutely loved it. I have always believed that growth of any kind comes from being uncomfortable. Certainly the bodybuilding and training application of that is self-explanatory. But when it came to things like sales and paperwork, I had never been comfortable with any of that. I decided I would learn the car business inside and out. It was exciting, and I felt twenty years old again. I have always loved cars anyway, and I learned that I loved buying, selling, and leasing them just as much as owning and driving them. Now I’m a Fleet Manager and do mainly wholesale and corporate sales. I believe that you don’t choose your career. Your career chooses you.

 tomm4

Do you have any major regrets?

TP: I can’t say that I do, though I passed up two once-in-a-lifetime business opportunities. I was asked in 1979 to invest in Gold’s Gym, which Ed Connors had acquired from Ken Sprague and planned to turn into a franchise. There was only one Gold’s at the time. I loved the place, but it was a dump, a hole in the wall. It was my first year as a pro and I had earned forty thousand dollars. Ed asked me to put twenty of that into the business, but I really wanted to get a new Corvette. I got the Corvette, Ed found other investors, and grew it into over 300 locations around the world before selling it for hundreds of millions of dollars. A couple years after that, a neighbor wanted me to invest in an idea he had for a chain of coffee shops. I said, nobody’s going to go somewhere just for coffee, you can get that at Denny’s with your eggs for a quarter.

 

Don’t tell me it was Starbucks?

TP: Yes, it was Starbucks.

 

Damn. That’s harsh.

TP: That’s why when my old training partner and good friend Tony Martino, now a multi-millionaire, called me up a couple months ago about a new company with a health product named Zrii that Deepak Chopra was already endorsing, I knew I had to say yes. I am not letting opportunity pass me by a third time!

 tomm4b

What are some of your favorite physiques of all time?

TP: Arnold, Draper, Franco, and Robby Robinson were all excellent. In later years, I would say Shawn Ray and Flex Wheeler.

 

Do you believe the drug situation has truly gotten out of hand in the pros today?

TP: I do, yes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for mass. It’s just when it gets distorted, alien-looking, with all the weird lumps and the loss of separation and detail, and the big guts. It’s no longer attractive in any way. Another thing to consider is, you have bodybuilding and ‘natural’ bodybuilding. What other sport do you see a need for that? There isn’t ‘natural’ football or ‘natural’ basketball. Clearly, even though steroids are a part of most professional sports, it’s most obvious in bodybuilding and we have the worst reputation.

 

Eh, baseball is up there now too. Who or what do you think is responsible for the shift from the physiques of the 80’s to what we see now?

TP: I would have to say Dorian Yates. When he started winning Mr. Olympia titles, he changed the scene from symmetry to gut-wrenching muscle mass. I remember back when I was with the WBF (World Bodybuilding Federation), we flew him out and offered him a quarter-million-dollar annual contract for three years, and he turned it down. Dorian said he really wanted to be Mr. Olympia and he believed that he could, and a few months later he was. I sent him a telegram congratulating him on winning and he framed it on his gym wall.

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What win were you proudest of?

TP: This will sound crazy because people always expect me to say the Universe, but it wasn’t a win at all. It was actually the 1981 Mr. Olympia where Franco won and I took third. I was so upset about the actual loss that I didn’t speak to Franco for over twenty-five years after the show. But that contest established me as a top pro and took my career to the next level. The minute I got off the stage, I had promoters from a dozen different countries offering to hire me for appearances. I had done a fair amount of guest posings and seminars before, but after the ’81 Olympia it was insane. I was literally on the road every weekend of the year making about five or six grand, and that was in early 80’s dollars. Sometimes losing a contest leads to a greater success than winning would have. I wound up having a better and far more lucrative career than a couple of the guys that actually won the Mr. Olympia in those years. Another similar situation was at the 1978 Mr. America, where I lost to the late Ron Teufel in the short class. I walked off stage very angry and frustrated, as it was the third time I had done that show and the second year in a row I took runner-up. But Jim Manion, who went on to form the NPC a few years later, told me to go backstage, where they were going to do a separate judging to determine who would go to the Mr. Universe. They picked me to represent the USA, and I ended up winning the Universe and turning pro.

 

That’s a great story. At which contest do you feel you looked the very best in your career?

TP: I have to go with the 1981 Olympia. My fiancé had left me earlier that year for my then training partner, and I was filled with a tremendous amount of rage. I took all that aggression out in the gym and had the most incredible workouts of my life. I could touch a dumbbell and get pumped. The gym was my outlet for all the anger, all the hurt, and my body responded. Later, Bill Pearl told me that he would win a Mr. Universe every time a wife divorced him! A lot of this is going to be in my new e-book, “The Untold.”

 

What moment on stage will always stand out in your memory?

TP: It was the last Mr. Olympia I did, in 1986. I had torn my biceps and wasn’t even in the top ten, so it was my worst showing ever. But I got four or five encores after my routine. The crowd just could not get enough of me. They were standing on their seats and screaming at the top of their lungs. Arnold was off stage and we traded a look at that point. He knew this was the pinnacle of my career, and that I would remember it for the rest of my life. It really was a special moment that I feel privileged to have experienced.

 

Do you ever miss how the sport used to be, when it was a lot smaller and literally, everybody knew everybody?

TP: It’s not so much that there are more guys or more money. Somehow the love of the game is gone, and the charisma is gone. I remember driving from Michigan to Ohio with my buddies to see the Pro World, and the atmosphere was like a rock concert. Just to be in the presence of those stars like Arnold, Ed Corney, Franco, was so inspiring to us. The audiences used to go ballistic. Now, the audience looks bored half the time, and so do the bodybuilders. Something is missing. At the last Arnold, I was talking to some other old-timers like Lou Ferrigno, Sergio, and Zane about going to watch the show. They told me they didn’t go anymore because it just wasn’t the same. I didn’t understand what they meant, but now I do.

 

I found it odd in looking at your contest history that instead of ending at the Mr. Olympia, you actually made your swan song the 1987 Detroit Pro Invitational. What made you choose that show?

TP: It made sense – Michigan was where it all started for me back as a kid, so that’s where it would end, that part of my life. All in all, it was a fantastic ride and I am honored that so many people still remember me and continue to be fans.

Web site: www.tomplatz.com

 

Contest History

1974 AAU Teen Mr. America                                  Second place

1975 AAU Mr. Southeastern USA                          Third place

1975 AAU Mr. Michigan                                          Overall Winner

1976 AAU Mr. America                                           Third, Short class

1977 AAU Mr. Southeastern USA                           Winner

1977 AAU MR. America                                          Second, Short class

1978 AAU Mr. America                                           Second, Short class

1978 IFBB USA World Qualifier                             Middleweight winner

1978 IFBB World Amateur Championships            Middleweight and Overall

(formerly known as the Mr. Universe)

1979 IFBB Mr. Olympia                                           Eighth, Lightweight

1980 IFBB Pennsylvania Grand Prix                      Tenth place

1980 IFBB Night of Champions                              Twelfth place

1980 IFBB Pro Universe                                         Second place

1980 IFBB Pro World                                              Second place

1980 IFBB Mr. Olympia                                           Ninth place

1981 IFBB Mr. Olympia                                           Third place

1982 IFBB Mr. Olympia                                           Sixth place

1984 IFBB Mr. Olympia                                           Ninth place

1985 IFBB Mr. Olympia                                           Seventh place

1986 IFBB Mr. Olympia                                           Eleventh place

1987 IFBB Detroit Pro Invitational                           Sixth

 

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