Imagine your life this way: You bring your 6-foot, 3-inch, 255 pound frame to Iowa State to play on the offensive line.

With it comes commitment because now, oh boy, are we ever talking eating – like, 10,000 calories a day, a-pizza-before-bed gorge fests.

In seven or eight months, you’ve gained 50 pounds.

In three or four years, you hang up your shoulder pads large enough to house an African village and reminisce of the times blocking for then-iconic running backs, like Darren Davis and Ennis Haywood.

This was the story of Ben Bruns.

This is his story today.

He’s 24.

He’s lost 45 pounds in three months on a diet allowing him no carbohydrates.

He’s gained 25 of it back.

His joints hurt.

It’s a pain he’s reminded of every day.

His blood pressure and cholestrol are manageable now but he’s worried if they will be when he’s 35.

It’s tough, he says, to program yourself to eat beyond the point of wanting to, every single freakin’ day, then when there are no more whistles or helmets or coaches around, to “leave the table hungry.”

This is a common story. Bruns and others like him have grown obscenely large for a game that has left them much too quickly, which you should bear in mind when thinking of all college players not drafted by any National Football League teams last weekend.

What you must realize, is that none of them regret it. They’re glad they played.

What you also must realize is that they made a conscious choice – yes the coaches pressured them to gain weight, sometimes a pound a week lest they face the discipline of 100 push-ups after practice, or, ironically, extra running – but the choice to become a 300-pounder if they weren’t already was always theirs.

Mark Coberley is the head athletic trainer for the football team and what he’s noticed are guys that have to gain weight to become linemen have an easier time losing it after football.

The guys who come in at offensive lineman weight – or north of it – have problems keeping pounds off, he says.

Andy Kelley is one such guy. Playing sparingly throughout his career, Kelley graduated in December with a degree in history.

He weighed 311 pounds when he came to Iowa State.

“I had to try to keep weight down at times,” he says.

He’s 330 now.

It’s a struggle, he says, to keep from really putting the pounds on, but it’s a struggle he’s winning.

His blood pressure, he says, is almost too low and at 6-3 and born with a wide frame and big bones, Kelley thinks the height/weight chart found in every doctor’s office is irrelevant for men such as he.

The military abides by these charts and if Kelley or Bruns would have joined after football, they would have had to first drop close to 100 pounds.

“If I had to weigh 220 pounds [directly after the season], I’d just look weird,” Bruns says.

Former offensive lineman Bill Marsau doesn’t look weird, but there was a time when “I couldn’t imagine myself weighing 300 pounds.”

Last year at this time, he weighed 310. He’s now at 285 and struggling just as much to keep the weight off as Kelley.

But here’s the difference: When Marsau came to Iowa State, he was 6-6 and 235, less of a football frame than a basketball one.

Three things are against him: He still wants to eat a lot, he’s inactive (studying in veterinary school will do that) and, at 25, he’s getting older (his joints pain him as well).

“Being overweight puts you at risk but not as much risk as being inactive,” says Kathi Thomas, an associate professor of health and human performance at Iowa State.

This doesn’t bode well for Marsau, she says because “you can’t practice offensive lineman by yourself.”

Nor does it bode well for most men.

Between the ages of 20 and 40, men eat the same amount as they did as teenagers but spend much less time exercising like they once did, Thomas documents.

Which, for Thomas, begs the question, “Is it ethical for coaches . to have expectations to do things like this?”

A study of retired offensive linemen and their weight problems and joint pains would provide many answers, but neither Thomas, nor anyone else questioned, knows of any.

Still, Thomas says the knee, ankle and shoulder pains could be caused weight gain.

But it could also be caused by heavy weightlifting, and the bone structures ill-designed to handle it.

Or it could be injected steroids.

Or the “impact factors” as she calls it, of heavy, well-equipped bodies repeatedly hitting heavy, well-equipped bodies.

Which begs a second question: Will playing offensive lineman ever become physically unhealthy?

“I think it already is,” Marsau says.

Paul Kix is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Hubbard. He is sports senior reporter for the Daily.