Jamie Dukes Official Website
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  CurvSports.com and Jamie Dukes, of the Atlanta Falcons are excited to announce its partnership with sports gaming company SportSims.net. SportSims.net. is the ultimate online sports simulation. It empowers sports fan gamers, allowing them to realize their dream of owning, managing and coaching their own professional football franchise. Owners can start their football franchise in their choice of 32 US cities and have a team in as many leagues as they choose. The SportSims professional football “season” is a 28-day cycle, so each month is equivalent to a full NFL season. “SportSims.net is very excited about working with former NFL player and current NFL Network analyst Jamie Dukes. Having a former NFL player support our game is phenomenal,“ said Steve Olson, Owner of SportSims.net.
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SportSims welcomes Jamie Dukes to our team. Mr. Dukes played at Florida State from 1982-1985, where he was a four-time All-American offensive guard and was inducted into the Seminole Hall of Fame in 1991. He went on to play 10 seasons in the NFL as a guard and center for the Atlanta Falcons, Green Bay Packers and Arizona Cardinals. The affable and outgoing Dukes, known for his tell-it-as-it-is honesty and strong opinions, joined NFL Network as an analyst on NFL Total Access in 2006. We are excited to have Jamie Dukes join us at SportSims! (more)
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By Sherri L. Smith November 14, 2009 On November 11, BET, in conjunction with
the New York Association of Black Journalists and The New York Times,
presented a roundtable discussion on the problem of obesity in the
African-American community. Titled “The U.S. Obesity Epidemic, African
Americans at Risk,” a room packed with journalists, medical specialists
and members of the health and fitness industry came to weigh in on
obesity and its widespread, devastating effects.
The panel was comprised of six experts
that have been on the front lines in the fight to reduce the growing
waistlines in the Black community: Former NFL offensive lineman and TV
commentator Jamie Dukes; Dr. William Gibbs, creator of the Pediatric
Lifestyle Program at New York Hospital; Lynya Floyd, Essence Magazine
Senior Editor, Health & Relationships; Roy S. Johnson, editor in
chief of Men’s Fitness and MensFitness.com; Dr. Collin Braithwaite,
Bariatric Surgeon, Winthrop Bariatric Surgery Center; and moderator Dr.
Virgie Bright Ellington, author of “What Your Doctor Wants You to Know
but Doesn’t Have Time to Tell You.”
A screening of a clip from the upcoming BET
News special, “Heart in the City: Dying to Eat in Jackson,”
laid the groundwork for the discussion. Dr. Braithwaite stated sobering
statistics including the whopping $147 billion spent in 2008 on treating
obesity-related illnesses. While only 13 percent of the U.S. population
is Black, approximately 35 percent of African Americans are obese, with
23 percent categorized as morbidly obese.
“When you look at the obituary column,
you don’t see ‘so-and-so died of obesity,’” said Dr. Braithwaite. “You
see that they died of a stroke or heart attack, when in fact, many of
these people are obese.”
While the numbers were grim, the panel’s
discourse remained earnest and hopeful. Ex-NFL player Jamie Dukes lost
four teammates to diabetes, stroke and other illnesses before he turned
his focus on his own obesity. The fear that he would leave his family
fatherless ultimately led him to seek a medical solution in the form of
the increasingly popular Realize Band.
While surgery remains a viable option for some, the panel addressed the larger issue of the perception of weight in the Black community. Dr. Gibbs pointed out the cultural stigma in West Indian cultural of being perceived as too skinny, while Floyd spoke about a friend’s reaction to the doctor telling her she was obese. “I had never really thought about what it meant to be obese,” Floyd recalled her friend saying. “I told her, ‘what are you talking about, you look great,’ not realizing that there were certain parameters to this.” Education and action, the panel concluded, were the keys to shrinking the levels of obesity. The statistics are alarming within the Black community, prompting many to call for community-level aid and programs. But Roy S. Johnson, editor in chief of Men’s Fitness, stressed the importance of individual accountability. “I love the empowering of our community and I let people know that this is the one thing that you can control,” Johnson shared. “If there’s anyone in your life that you love, don’t you want to be around as long as you can be for them? Just look at your kids, look at your spouse, your friends and family. You don’t just owe it to them, you owe it to yourself to live the best life you can possibly live.”
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Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
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By Steve Hummer August 31, 2009 Let's do lunch with former Falcons center Jamie Dukes, an
occasion that once put the food service industry on high alert. He could
be two of the best customers any restaurant ever had.
Unable to change eating habits developed over a lifetime of
building bulk, Dukes underwent gastric band surgery a year ago. Doctors
put a restrictor plate on his appetite, an adjustable band near the top
of the stomach that allowed him to fill up quicker and eat less. But this is the new Dukes, three-quarters of the man he used to be. He is, in fact, a fellow who for 10 seasons did the toughest, dirtiest work of professional football and yet now is in danger of losing his Man Card over a grievous violation: Splitting meals with his wife. Which he is doing happily this day and plans to do a lot more in the future. "Now we share entrees as opposed to me having two of my own, plus appetizer," Dukes said over his half of the sandwich and a ration of fries, keeping to his own portion of the meal and almost delicately picking at his food. Dukes, 45, figures he was closing in on 400 pounds on his 6-foot-1 frame as he worked the 2008 Pro Bowl for the NFL Network, give or take a luau or two. He's now at 290, he said. Doctors have told him 270 would be a reasonable target weight. He is a walking case study of an obesity issue that follows many NFL players into retirement. So, you have a nice, long career if you're lucky, feeding this need for size along the way. You retire, then what? Dukes' playing weight was around 300 pounds, and, once he quit in 1995, he slowly, surely added weight. The NFL obviously has grown much wider, beating the fast food folk to the whole supersizing concept. "I've seen some data that has suggested there are over 500 players in the NFL that weigh more than 300 pounds, where in my day, if you had one or two in the whole league, you were lucky," said Dr. Archie Roberts, a 1960s era NFL quarterback-turned-cardiologist. Roberts heads the New Jersey-based Living Heart Foundation, an organization funded through the NFL that deals with the cardiovascular fallout in building bigger players. In the last five years, the foundation has screened 1,700 retired players and is now in the process of formulating data on the risks and courses of treatment. A quarter of them would be classified as obese, a 2005 American Medical Association study of the body mass of NFL players concluded. There are no reliable numbers to compare the death rate of NFL players to non-players, Roberts said. Dukes didn't need numbers; he just knew what he knew. He had seen friends and fellow lineman die young of conditions that he believed were based on their weight problems: Hall of Famer Reggie White at 42 (cardiac arrhythmia, respiratory disorder) and former Falcons Mel Agee at 39 (heart attack) and Tory Epps at 38 (blood clot). "I really didn't feel bad at 390. The problem was I knew what was coming. It was like Russian roulette," Dukes said. Now, the big, tough football player measures victories differently these days. His cholesterol level has fallen, and he has cut back from three blood pressure medicines to one. Twice, he has had his collection of suits taken in. "Now when I pick up stuff for him, I have to remind myself it's not 5 or 6XL," his wife, Angela, said.
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