Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier suffers from the disease, Alopecia, which prevents the growth of hair on the body.
It is the same skin disease that NBA player Charlie Villanueva has.
While not painful or life-threatening, Shazier and Villanueva were the subject of ridicule during their respective childhoods. They still hear it today from keyboard warriors.
From Shazier’s Players’ Tribune piece:
“Search ‘Shazier hair’ on Twitter and you’ll see all the kind of ignorance that people with alopecia deal with every day. Some stuff was mean, and some stuff was funny as hell. At least to me.
“After I went on the NFL Network to do a little spot in their studio, somebody posted a screenshot of my head with the caption, ‘When you drop your lollipop on the carpet and pick it back up.’
“Man, I was crying laughing. That’s just creative. I respect it. But that’s me. I’ve been dealing with those comments for 19 years.”
