Todd Marinovich has heard the story of his life told so many times over the years. The quarterback prodigy. The overbearing father. The sudden rise to stardom. The drug-induced downfall. Each retelling framed in the fashion of a Greek tragedy.
His story has been chronicled in painful detail over decades, by everyone it seems but Marinovich. But writing it, reconciling with his past, would prove pretty agonizing in its own right. It wasn’t always easy to hear back old stories, filtered through his co-writer, Lizzy Wright.
“It was cathartic,” Marinovich, 56, told The Times. “But I had to really try not to be defiant. To just kind of let go. That was not easy for me.”
The result was a memoir — “Marinovich: Outside the Lines in Football, Art and Addiction” — that’s packed with details of the quarterback’s wild rise and harrowing fall. Marinovich, who now lives in Hawaii, talked with The Times about his experience writing the book.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
You write in the first few pages of your book that writing it was “an act of self-love after decades of defiance.” What did you mean when you wrote that?
Most of my life, if you told me to go right, I would go left. I think it has something to do with age that changes that and time and life experience, to where that defiance — I guess it doesn’t always change in some cases, but for me, I’ve let go of the fighting everything. Because that’s exhausting to live that way.
And then the self-love, I’m still working on that. I don’t by any means have that all solved. So it’s a process to solve, life and recovery and living. I’m learning as I go. I really don’t wanna come off as an expert in anything. Just that I’ve had a lot of life experience. That’s all I really have is life experience. I’m at a point where I’m willing to be open and share it. It just seems right.
One of my big takeaways came from your complicated feelings about your dad, Marv Marinovich, and the narrative he helped craft of you as this robo-quarterback. What conclusions did you come to about your relationship with your dad while writing this book?
Our relationship over my lifetime was really rocky. He was diagnosed with dementia towards the end of his life, but long before that, we got really tight. A lot of it has to do with me seeing him differently. Did he really change that much? I really don’t know. But our relationship did change. There were moments where I just despised him, just didn’t want to be around him. When I saw his car pull up in like the sixth grade, I would brace myself like, ‘OK, here we go.’ But as I got older and he got older, I saw him more clearly. I could see what was behind all the actions that maybe I didn’t agree with. And I knew 100% that he always had my back.
Did he use me in a way to help craft his training? Yeah. But people really went overboard on him, and I think in an unfair way. I’m not the only one who has a hard time articulating their relationship with their dad. I think it’s a common struggle. But it felt good to know that was behind us towards the end of his life.
You got a lot of attention very early on as the quarterback prodigy essentially crafted in a lab, who doesn’t eat sugar and had never eaten a Big Mac — which you clarify, in the book, is not true. What was it like for you to get all of that attention at that age?
Looking back on it, I was put in that situation way, way too early to where I was being interviewed and asked questions that I don’t know the answer to. I was extremely shy, and so just talking to somebody at that age made me anxious, and then seeing it’s out in the public — I don’t think my dad calculated for all the media and that part of that journey. He was training me on the field, where I got results, but when I was dealing with media, I would just shut down or I would just lie.
By me not being truthful, I created this monster in a sense. And that’s what’s disturbing about seeing those early articles in, like, People Magazine and Sports Illustrated. What got America’s attention wasn’t my spiral. It was, ‘He’s a freak because he doesn’t eat sugar.’ And I couldn’t say, ‘Well, I do!’ Because my dad ruled with a heavy hand. So it was like a runaway freight train that had left the station. I didn’t know how to stop it. I was like, I might as well just ride this thing out, and that’s kind of what I did.
USC quarterback Todd Marinovich (13) stands beside receiver John Jackson (1) during the Rose Bowl game against Michigan on Jan. 1, 1990.
(Mike Powell / Getty Images)
What led you to USC?
Oh, gosh. Family history? I mean, everyone almost on both sides of the family went to USC, and I grew up going to games. I didn’t know I’d end up there, but that’s where all roads were leading. And the funny thing is I really wanted to go to Stanford. They had been recruiting me since my freshman year and really spent time and really understood that art was something important to me.
And I wanted to throw the football, and SC was not that school. It was Tailback U. And then it was my grandfather that said, ‘You know, Todd, where do you want to live when you’re done going to school?’ And I was like, ‘Southern California.’ ‘Well, I think that’s your answer.’
Then my closest friend, Jeff Peace, who I played against in high school, and then we were roommates together at USC, he said when we were being recruited, if you go to Stanford, we’re gonna kick your ass every year, and we’re gonna go to the Rose Bowl, and that rang true to me. I could go up there and throw for 10,000 yards, but we’re not gonna win. And I was really competitive. I wanted more than anything to compete in a championship arena. I didn’t want to lose, and I knew SC gave me that better chance.
You write about some wild times you had at USC and in the NFL with the Raiders. When you thought back on your few years at USC for the book, any one story that stuck out as like, ‘Wow, I really can’t believe that happened?’
There were so many. I forget some of the more classic times. But the ones that jumped out when you said that were the nude activities. From riding the beach cruiser through campus at night all buck naked to jumping into the Olympic pool, sneaking into the swim stadium because our dorm was right next to it. We would streak up to the highest platform. There were a lot of things I just wouldn’t do today. But glad I lived through them because some of them weren’t the safest.
You wrote about the nightmare experience at the Sun Bowl that led you to leave USC after your redshirt sophomore season. What happened?
It was an end to a really turbulent year. It was the year after we had won the Rose Bowl, and we had lost so many starters that we were a different team. Our lack of success was kind of directed at me, and that’s part of playing quarterback, I get it. And then the coach chose to go to the Sun Bowl over the Aloha Bowl, which I was furious about. We found ourselves in El Paso, and it was snowing, it’s freezing, and we practiced there for a week, and we would go over to Mexico and drink tequila.
It’s not the best pregame routine. And I felt — it was alcohol poisoning, I think, midweek. By the time the game rolled around, I was ready for the season to be over. And Michigan State, the team that we played, was tremendous on defense. They did not mess around. It was a low-scoring game, and after the game, I got into it with (former USC coach Larry Smith) on the sidelines. I said to him, I will go in for them, my teammates, (but not for you), and he just blew his lid.
I knew that was it. I knew it was done. And then the locker room fights broke out. It was such a crazy scene to end that season, ‘cause I did not, I did not want to leave USC. I wasn’t looking, even though the press was saying, is this Marinovich’s swan song? I was not considering that until that moment.
You go to the NFL with the Raiders after that. When did it feel for you like things were starting to get out of control?
It was my rookie season and there was pressure released off my shoulders. Because they said you’re not gonna be the backup. We’ll put you third string. You’re gonna go on kind of like a tour of cities, and you’ll get a feel of what it’s like to be playing professional football. And I took it in a total different light. You’re getting to tour these cities and party with all these rock stars, and try to focus on football. Looking back, it’s impossible. I didn’t have the tools at the time.
I wasn’t winding up on a jail floor in these years. I didn’t feel I was doing anything wrong. And it just kind of mounted with every game on the road. The off-the-field antics picked up speed, and it was like a snowball effect. And then on top of it, I’m having to balance the NFL, not the Raiders, like the sovereign board of substance abuse, this policy that they just installed my rookie year. Like what are the chances? And I’m going to be their poster boy for testing. I want to party, but I gotta show up for practice and test. That’s just not a recipe for functioning at a high level.
Raiders quarterback Todd Marinovich, shown playing the Browns on Sept. 20, 1992, said he began using harder drugs when he played for the team.
(Kevork Djansezian / Associated Press)
After the Raiders, you tried to hold onto your football career in the CFL and Arena League. That’s also when you start using harder drugs, like heroin, more frequently.
I was not in a good place. (Football) wasn’t what I grew up aspiring to be a part of anymore. It was secondary. And I wasn’t playing at a high level either. It became a way to make money, and I did it for a few years. With the Arena situation, that’s when my using career elevated to heroin. And having to try to be consistent in a job when on heroin, it’s super difficult. That’s where it really picked up speed, heading down.
When did it feel like you reached a point you’d consider rock bottom?
In my career, there were several. Really, what is rock bottom? I think it’s a feeling of complete despair and loss of hope, and I had hit that place many, many, many times, and at different levels. It wasn’t just one shining moment of clarity because I knew for a long time throughout playing in the Arena League and in Canada the route I was going on. I was not gonna be here very long. And I didn’t need anybody to spell that out. Now, am I willing to change my behavior? I’m gonna consider that. You would think that would be a quick answer, like, ‘Yeah, let’s change!’ But it wasn’t that easy. It definitely wasn’t easy. Hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
I’m so conditioned to prepare for an event, a game, a season. The whole thing about recovery is it’s a marathon, and looking back on my attempts, there have been so many where I just start off out of the gate just flying, like, ‘Get out of his way!’ Then I’m on my way down again. I’ve had to really adjust in my thinking and perception to the cliche that it’s one day at a time. But really, that is it for people like me.
Todd Marinovich smiles after a Los Angeles Avengers practice in Culver City on Dec. 13, 2000.
(Reed Saxon / Associated Press)
In 2017, you stepped in to quarterback a minor league football team at 48. You wrote that experience led you to start using drugs again. What was your head space like at that time?
At the time, up to that point, I was in maybe the best head space I’d been in. It was about being of service helping people.
But it was after the training camp, being out in the desert in Palm Springs in the summer, practicing two-a-days at 47, and I was the only quarterback for half the training camp. So my shoulder is just hanging. They send me somewhere, and it just clicks when I start taking painkillers. It was like someone lit the pilot light. This thing is going to go. We don’t know when, but he’s on that road to addiction, full blown, again. And that’s a stumbling block for a lot of people.
At the time, I’m thinking, ‘I need it.’ I can’t go to practice without it. All of these things are excuses. I need someone close to me to point out, like ‘Dude, this is where you’re going.’ I fool myself. Like, I gotta practice. And I gotta take this to practice, and when I take that, all bets are off. And it’s a matter of time. It’s a great lesson. But what I understand is that a lot of people that aren’t here had the same ideas. Like we’re just gonna do this because of this, and this, and then this. I got the lesson, and thank God, I’m really fortunate that I lived through it. Because a lot of people don’t. And I’ve gotten some chances, and I’m really grateful for that. Cause I like being here.
