Football 30 for 30: Todd Marinovich [Archive]

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Rain Man

04-20-2014, 10:00 PM

Anyone seen this? I randomly found it today and got pulled in to watch the whole thing.

It was quite interesting. They interviewed Todd himself, and he was quite well spoken. I'm not sure that the story offered any definitive explanations of his fall, but it was an interesting story nonetheless.

I missed the first ten minutes or so, so I didn't catch the early part of the story, but a couple of things that I thought were interesting were...

Todd made a statement that I thought was astute. He said something like, "I was good. I knew that I had talent. But I had the question of whether you should do something [for a living] just because you're good at it.

The Raiders were clearly the worst thing that could have happened to him. He was starting to run with the wrong crowd in college, and a change in scenery might have stopped that. Instead, he gets drafted by the Los Angeles Raiders, which lets him continue on his negative path and even made it worse since he had a lot of access to the wildness of LA. And on top of that, the Raiders had a philosophy of running wild and embrace an image of being bad guys, which empowered his behavior.

Al Davis had spies following Marinovich everywhere he went. Marinovich said that he eventually was shown sheets of paper that listed all of his friends, all of his drug transactions, and everywhere he went. But it was notable that the Raiders never did anything to intervene. When Marinovich failed a drug test and got suspended for a year, the Raiders just cut him. Stay classy, Dead Al.

Marinovich was being tested three times a week for drugs, and he said that it "caused a lot of stress when you're doing drugs". He was trying to find new drugs that would pass the tests and settled on LSD.

They showed a clip at one point in Marinovich's rookie year when starter Jay Schroeder got hurt. Head coach Art Shell looked at Marinovich to bring him in, and Marinovich just gave him a fast head shake and looked away. Shell sent Vince Evans in. I thought it was kind of funny.

Howie Long is a self-aggrandizing piece of feces. But we all knew that already.

Marinovich tried pretty much every drug under the sun. He mentioned during the show cocaine, LSD, vicodin, and heroin. He said heroin was the one that was the killer and really threw his life out of control. The story implied that the heroin came after his football career, though.

He got invited to try out for the Steelers once he was reinstated, but turned them down and went to Canada. On his very first snap of his very first practice, he blew out his knee and never played in Canada again.

He went to the Arena League later. They interviewed his coach and the coach said that he was concerned about Marinovich being trouble, but his form was perfect. The coach decided that Marinovich would be okay because he was likely trying to prove that he could play the game and perhaps return to the NFL. Marinovich said that, no, he was actually playing because he needed money to buy heroin.

Both Todd and his father said that, while Todd was growing up, his father would always keep him calm before games by saying, "Hey, you're not playing the New York Giants. It's just a little league/high school/college team." Todd said that he entered the NFL and took on the Giants and told his dad, "Hey, I really am playing the New York Giants." These were the Giants of Lawrence Taylor and Carl Banks and Leonard Marshall, and the Raiders won. I realize that it may just be a story, but Todd said, "Once I beat the Giants, I was done. I had accomplished everything I had set out to do, and at that point, I was done." This happened while he was still considered an ascending player.

Anyway, I thought it was quite interesting, and Todd came off much better than I would have expected. He seemed like a thoughtful guy.

Deberg_1990

04-20-2014, 10:02 PM

One of Marty's playoff wins in KC!

Rain Man

04-20-2014, 10:03 PM

One of Marty's playoff wins in KC!

I remember it well. We played the Raiders on back to back weeks.

TimBone

04-20-2014, 10:05 PM

I saw it on Netflix a couple of weeks ago. It's the only sports documentary that has captured my wife's attention as well.

Psyko Tek

04-20-2014, 10:06 PM

One of Marty's playoff wins in KC!

KC won a playoff game?

link

'Hamas' Jenkins

04-20-2014, 11:03 PM

ClevelandBronco

04-20-2014, 11:46 PM

I caught it on Netflix a couple months ago. Marinovich has demons, no doubt, but he seems to have found the thing that has the best chance of making him happy. He seems a good enough fellow. I hope it works out for him.

chiefs1111

04-20-2014, 11:57 PM

The 30 for 30 series is one of the few things I like about ESPN anymore

rico

04-21-2014, 12:06 AM

I freaking love this documentary.

And the dude is all artsy-fartsy and evidently talented at being artsy...and they say he picked up that artistic side from his father. I thought that was interesting because his dad seemed like such an intense sports father that would be totally dismissive of art.

Todd Marinovich....the freaking ROBO QB.

BryanBusby

04-21-2014, 01:02 AM

Dude was rather hardcore.

Todd returned to football for the last time in the spring of 2000 — a mercurial stint with the Los Angeles Avengers in the Arena Football League. His first year, he tied the record for most touchdowns in a single game despite undergoing severe heroin withdrawal; after shitting his pants during warm-ups, he came out and threw ten touchdowns to win a game against the Houston Thunderbears. That same year, at age thirty-one, he was named to the all-rookie team. The next season, he became L. A.'s franchise player. The day he picked up his signing bonus, he was busted buying heroin. With him in the truck was $30,000 cash in an envelope. Toward the end of the season, he was ejected from successive games for throwing a clipboard and a hand towel at officials. Finally, he was suspended from the team.

"At that point, heroin became my full-time job," Todd says.

http://www.esquire.com/features/the-game/todd-marinovich-0509

DaKCMan AP

04-21-2014, 05:39 AM

A very good friend of mine works on a lot of these sports documentaries and was an associate produce for The Marinovich Project. I thought it was outstanding. There was a thread on this when it first aired:

http://chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=253542

FishingRod

04-21-2014, 08:58 AM

KC won a playoff game?

link

Yep I was there

Halfcan

04-21-2014, 09:08 AM

Ryan Leaf seems more of a wasted talent. Last I heard he was breaking into houses for meds.

Bowser

04-21-2014, 09:17 AM

To this day, seeing the number 58 makes Marinovich break out in a nervous sweat.

blaise

04-21-2014, 09:30 AM

I bet there's a lot more dads like his these days.

Deberg_1990

04-21-2014, 09:38 AM

Ryan Leaf seems more of a wasted talent. Last I heard he was breaking into houses for meds.

He was probably more purely gifted than Marinovich. I still think Leaf had one of the strongest NFL arms i have ever seen.

Otter

04-21-2014, 10:20 AM

Phobia

04-21-2014, 10:20 AM

I watched it on demand late last night. Intriguing story. Can't really put it all at the feet of Todd. His pops really set him up to fail in epic fashion.

Bowser

04-21-2014, 10:21 AM

Pretty interesting how he just mentally checked out after beating the Giants. Made his dad proud, mission accomplished.

Pennywise

04-21-2014, 10:25 AM

Todd returned to football for the last time in the spring of 2000 — a mercurial stint with the Los Angeles Avengers in the Arena Football League. His first year, he tied the record for most touchdowns in a single game despite undergoing severe heroin withdrawal; after shitting his pants during warm-ups, he came out and threw ten touchdowns to win a game against the Houston Thunderbears.

Gotta love heroin.

Otter

04-21-2014, 10:40 AM

I watched it on demand late last night. Intriguing story. Can't really put it all at the feet of Todd. His pops really set him up to fail in epic fashion.

The worst part is that his dad didn't seem to have any regrets or remorse on the way he raised Todd which leads you to believe that he thinks he's done nothing wrong.

My wrestling coach was that guy. He had two kids and both of them knock out daughters which he tried to control and check all throughout grade schoon and high school.

They were giving blowjobs in back seats at age 15 with their little Catholic School girl dresses up in the air as rebellion.

Rain Man

04-21-2014, 10:58 AM

Old Mr. Marinovich seems to be a bit of a psycho that inadvertantly pushed his son into drug use as a way of coping with a lack of childhood and pressure. I wouldn't have been suprised if they showed a clip of the old man standing in the shower with him after practice yelling at him that he's washing his balls wrong.

On a side note, where did Todd get his Richie Cunningham red hair, pastey white skin and freckles from? His dad looks like he could be Italian and his mom in the video had what looked to be bleach dyed black or brown hair.

There's a ginger in the woodpile somewhere.

I watched it on demand late last night. Intriguing story. Can't really put it all at the feet of Todd. His pops really set him up to fail in epic fashion.

I need to catch it again to see the first fifteen minutes or so. I only started watching while he was at USC, and I figure that first fifteen minutes is pretty interesting.

Also, they interviewed his sister, and she had the red hair like he did. It was pretty apparent that they were siblings based on appearance, so there were some Irish in the line somewhere.

Rain Man

04-21-2014, 11:45 AM

The worst part is that his dad didn't seem to have any regrets or remorse on the way he raised Todd which leads you to believe that he thinks he's done nothing wrong.

My wrestling coach was that guy. He had two kids and both of them knock out daughters which he tried to control and check all throughout grade schoon and high school.

They were giving blowjobs in back seats at age 15 with their little Catholic School girl dresses up in the air as rebellion.

I hope those girls show up at the reunions.

Another thing that I thought was kind of funny, albeit in a mean way, was the physiques of the Marinovich parents. The dad was obviously a big training guy, so he had an old man face perched atop a barrel-chested powerlifting body. It was one of those deals where the face and body don't match at all. And then they interviewed the mother and she was 100+ pounds overweight and looked like she didn't have a muscle in her body. I bet that drove the dad crazy.

rico

04-21-2014, 12:39 PM

Didn't Marinovich get busted for assaulting a woman or something a few years back?

Jimmya

04-21-2014, 01:26 PM

Hung out with the wrong people.

Rain Man

04-21-2014, 01:30 PM

Didn't Marinovich get busted for assaulting a woman or something a few years back?

I don't remember that and they didn't mention it, but I suspect they didn't mention a lot of stuff.

Otter

04-21-2014, 01:48 PM

I need to catch it again to see the first fifteen minutes or so. I only started watching while he was at USC, and I figure that first fifteen minutes is pretty interesting.

Also, they interviewed his sister, and she had the red hair like he did. It was pretty apparent that they were siblings based on appearance, so there were some Irish in the line somewhere.

 As far as the Dad, who knows what ESPN changed with editing or what they decided to cut out and re-arrange. It just would have been nice to see him acknowledge it was a bad idea to push a child that hard and not let him socialize normally. Look what happens when you do that with dogs (yes, that's an over simplification).

Who knows what goes through Todd and his father's heads. They seem to be almost best friends now so good for them.

Live and learn.

Otter

04-21-2014, 01:53 PM

I hope those girls show up at the reunions.

Another thing that I thought was kind of funny, albeit in a mean way, was the physiques of the Marinovich parents. The dad was obviously a big training guy, so he had an old man face perched atop a barrel-chested powerlifting body. It was one of those deals where the face and body don't match at all. And then they interviewed the mother and she was 100+ pounds overweight and looked like she didn't have a muscle in her body. I bet that drove the dad crazy.

Yeah, the dads head definatly didn't match the body. He was still built very well especially for his age but well by any standards. They showed pictures of him and his wife either in early marrage or before getting married and she was pretty hot number.

As far as the wrestling Dad's sisters; one is happily married to a good friend of mine back in PA and she still looks amazing in her late 30s and the other let's just say...not so good across the board.

Easy 6

04-21-2014, 01:55 PM

Reading these posts got me interested, so I'm now about 15 minutes into it... the amount of pressure on this guy must've felt like the weight of the world.

His dad definitely had some great ideas for training and nutrition, but he helped cause the later problems by never allowing Todd to just be normal once in a while, mom had to basically abduct him just so he could have some free time... and oh how I miss Pony shoes, back then I would've taken a pair of those over Nike anytime.

NinerDoug

04-21-2014, 02:00 PM

I recall J.S. was injured and could not start the last game of the season, T.M. came in, played well, and (presumably Al Davis) had him start the next week in the first game of the playoffs (which J.S. should have started) which he tanked. I thought that was the point that he got on Al Davis' shit list, but I could be wrong.

Easy 6

04-21-2014, 02:06 PM

Wow, the throw to beat UCLA in the final seconds was a beaut.

Stewie

04-21-2014, 02:57 PM

Marinovich did not love football and his dad was the worst kind of stage parent--trying to live vicariously through his son, parasitizing his life in the process. In many ways Earl Woods was similar. The only difference is that Tiger loved golf and Todd didn't really care for football.

I first thought of Michelle Wie and her over-bearing father. She has all the money she'll ever need, yet she's still out there trying to win (and won yesterday) even with her funky putting stance. I think she's moved beyond her father's BS and is becoming her own person/player.

Easy 6

04-21-2014, 03:00 PM

This was really enjoyable, I'm glad he's happy with his life now and is close with his dad... and he must not be doing too bad these days either, that customized, baby blue VW surfer van he climbed into at the end wasn't cheap.

Rain Man

04-21-2014, 03:13 PM