Former UNLV star competes on ‘The Biggest Loser’

She was a world-class athlete, having helped Team USA win three gold medals as a softball pitcher on a world stage.

Lori Harrigan-Mack always was a big girl, but she was strong, too. She was big and strong in eight ways, like on those old bread commercials. She made the softball dance for the national team, and she ate the right foods, because the national team had nutritionists and whatnot.

It seemed like she might pitch forever.

But nobody does, not even Jamie Moyer. So when she finally retired, Harrigan-Mack had a lot of free time on her hands.

The crowd no longer was cheering. The nutritionists were gone.

She became a mother, and then she tried to have another baby. “After I retired, I don’t know if we ever talked about my miscarriages,” she said over the telephone.

“I’ve had eight miscarriages.”

One miscarriage is depressing. This woman had eight. And so she began to eat, because eating is what people often do when they are depressed.

She ate the wrong foods. How many of us eat the right ones when we’re down in the dumps?

Harrigan-Mack soon weighed 301 pounds.

She agreed to go on “The Biggest Loser: Glory Days,” the 16th season of NBC’s weight-loss reality show.

This year’s season is based on former athletes such as Harrigan-Mack and former NFL quarterback Scott Mitchell shedding pounds and getting their mojo back, not to mention their self-esteem.

The first show airs Thursday. Filming began in late June. When I spoke to her last week, Harrigan-Mack did not say how many pounds she has shed, because that will get you booted off the island, or at least off the “Biggest Loser” ranch in Calabasas, Calif.

I’m guessing she has lost a lot of weight. When we spoke, you could hear the mojo coming back.

“It was definitely a very tough decision,” the 44-year-old former UNLV star said about going public with her weight struggle. “I just kind of went from being an athlete to going into retirement, not knowing how to retire.

“I went through that; we had our son (Shawn), my husband (Andrew) and I, and then I had the eight miscarriages. The most recent was January. I went through a real depression; I really didn’t care about myself anymore so …”

So she decided to go on TV, where they give you a diet that works and an education that helps keep the weight off after the closing credits.

“When the opportunity came to be on the show,” Harrigan-Mack said, “it actually scared me, because it was my chance to make a decision” about improving her quality of life.

When she threw the first no-hitter in Olympic history, against China, she was known as “Vegas.” Unlike most of her teammates, she wore lots of makeup then, and her long blond hair always seem to cascade and flow, like one of those models you see on a runway. She had style.

She will have style again, she says.

It hasn’t been easy, physically or emotionally. Dropping weight isn’t like pitching softball against the Chinese. Dot Richardson can’t always be there at shortstop to bail you out.

“This is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” said Harrigan-Mack, a security director for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. “To go from being an Olympic athlete, from being on the national team for 12 years, to coming here emotionally broken to try to find out who the real Lori is to — you know, just to get “Vegas” back, so to speak … yeah, the journey has been crazy.”

When the craziness ends, Harrigan-Mack says she can’t wait to go shopping for blue jeans.

Not all of the “Biggest Loser” contestants have three gold medals in a safety deposit box or set single-season records for the Detroit Lions for touchdowns (32) and passing yards (4,338) as Scott Mitchell did in 1995.

Howard “Woody” Carter, who played on the defensive line for Eldorado High School when Sherrill Stephens was coach, made it only as far as Dixie State and Missouri Southern and the local semipro and arena league circuits. He’s 46 years old and a car dealer at Chapman Dodge. He weighed 346 pounds when filming began.

Carter says big guys who play defensive linemen are encouraged to eat a lot, because big guys who eat a lot tend to close holes better than smaller guys.

“I was used to eating 10,000 calories a day,” said Carter, who also wrestled in high school at 185 pounds. “Now I’m eating 2,000. And I’m full. It’s just the things you eat; you can still be big and strong. Because after football, there’s life.”

Carter said he has five reasons for whipping himself into shape: his children — La-Var, Le-Ana, Pier and Isiah — and a promise that he would be the best father he could be for his kids and for his kids’ kids.

April Carter was Woody’s wife for 29 years and his best friend for 35. She was the one who made him promise to lose weight.

April had cancer and died this year.

I did not know April Carter was on her deathbed when she made Woody promise to lose the weight.

When I asked about it, he began to cry.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.