‘Drugs calmed my inner hatred’: Todd Marinovich talks the NFL, addiction and the power of art | NFL
Marcus knew Allen and tried to help. So did Hui Long. But many of Todd Marinovich’s teammates on the Los Angeles Raiders in the early 1990s had no idea the young quarterback was using drugs.
Marinovich came to the Raiders from the University of Southern California, where he led the Trojans to a Rose Bowl victory as a freshman. By then, he had earned two nicknames: “Robo Quarterback,” after the legendary training regimen instilled by his father, former Raiders player and assistant coach Marv Marinovich, aimed at fostering excellence in athletes. Another nickname was much more annoying: “Marijuana Fitch,” after his pot smoking, which became a taunt from opposing fans in high school. When Marinovich arrived in the NFL, he wasn’t just using marijuana.
“I couldn’t lift my head after another use of ecstasy, cocaine and liquor,” he wrote of a fateful morning in his new memoir. Marinovic: Outside the Lines in Football, Art and Addiction. “My body felt like a tin man.”
Who woke him up in time for training that day? It was “bug-eyed Marcus Allen who impatiently checked his watch” and then “returned to his hot red Lamborghini.”
For a while, the rising star’s drug problem was a well-kept secret. Until that wasn’t the case, when a third unsuccessful urine test the following season, in 1992, led to Marinovic’s exit from the team.
“I’ve been watching those guys my whole life — and now I’m their peer,” Marinovich says of his Raiders teammates (and former Trojans teammates) Allen, Long, Ronnie Lott and Ricky Ellison. “I didn’t want to let them down. However, I had things to do that I couldn’t share with them.”
Although he would have a rebirth in his Arena Football League career as a rookie member of the team, his once-seemingly glamorous life escalated into more drug abuse and its consequences under the law: “I silenced my inner hatred with an array of drugs over the next three decades, including ecstasy, acid, cocaine, heroin, crack, And methamphetamine in lethal doses to separate from internal misery.” The memoir was co-written with author Lizzie Wright, who sees it as more than just a sports autobiography.
“It’s the kind of story that has a lot to it,” she says. “It’s very complicated.” She cites Marinovich’s emotional awareness and long-standing passion for art—one of his paintings appears in the book.
Wright’s husband, Steve, is a former NFL player himself. In fact, he was an offensive lineman who protected Marinovich for the Raiders. Lizzie Wright helped her husband write his memoirs. Things went so well that Steve Wright recommended her to Marinovich as a collaborator.
Now that the book is over, Marinovich says, “it’s like talking about another life.”
In college, USC’s dramatic win over Washington State prompted a phone call from then-President Ronald Reagan. Marinovich’s Raiders years were marked by R-rated, drug-filled nights in Los Angeles. His youth came to the fore when he started under center in a 1991 NFL playoff game – the first rookie to do so for the Silver and Black. During this period of his life, the midfielder partied with celebrities such as Flea and Charlie Sheen.
“Thank God for Lizzie,” Marinovich says. “She did all the heavy lifting. She made it easy for me; [did] What a next-level teammate does for me: Help you, assist you, and bring out the best in you.
“Todd’s rise to fame is remarkable,” Wright says. “He was the best athlete coming out of high school in the country. Rose Bowl win as a freshman. First sophomore in history to declare for the NFL draft. He had to have his own group because he was so young. This is the Doogie Howser of football.”
However, she adds, there was “huge pressure”, and “the need for medications to survive, it becomes this vicious cycle. How do you get out of this? How do you solve it? It’s practically impossible.”
Long after Marinovich returned to the Arena Football League, he got another shot at football in 2017 at the age of 48 — first coaching quarterbacks and then adapting as a signal-caller to throw for seven TDs in a semi-professional game. He allowed the game to be billed as the first drug-free game in 33 years. In fact, he writes, he was still using: “The moment the drugs hit my system, I was doomed, losing another round in the violent battle to stay clean.”
Throughout the book, Marinovich spares no detail. You’ll learn all about how he faked drug test results in the NFL using other players’ urine samples — and about the time he wore blackface while appearing as Jimi Hendrix on Halloween, which he now expresses remorse for.
However, there are also beautiful moments – including Marinovich’s love of art, which he says helped save him. His paintings Now decorate the Raiders’ art gallery – yes, the Raiders have an art gallery – in their new home in Las Vegas.
Marinovich regrets wasting the patience of longtime Raiders owner Al Davis, who died in 2011. Seeking atonement, Marinovich sought out Davis’ son, current Raiders owner Mark Davis, at a Palm Springs restaurant. Mark Davis warmly welcomed Marinovich back to the Silver and Black alumni family, displaying his celebrity photos at Allegiant Stadium. The reader enjoys one photo of Johnny Cash smoking cigarettes. Marinovich also painted portraits of Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and his old colleague Allen.
Wright describes art as one of “an outlet where you can disconnect from yourself and feel at peace. There’s a freedom that happens with art. I think that’s an interesting thing to touch on.”
Art helped mend another, more personal, relationship. In Marv Marinovich’s final years, as he battled Alzheimer’s disease, the famously competitive father and his son bonded over artistic collaboration. Marinovich says his father didn’t fully recognize him once he became ill, but he knew they had a special partnership.
“Not many people know that Marv was a very creative painter and sculptor,” Marinovich says. “We got to create together, two artists doing what we did. There wasn’t a lot of talking, just a better rhythm, and he loved doing it with me… Who would have thought that art would take us to almost another level?”
It was difficult for Marinovich to discuss other parts of the narrative with Wright. This includes his multiple arrests over the years.
“The last thing I want to do at the beginning of the day is talk about arrests,” Marinovich says. “It’s embarrassing. I know it hasn’t been easy for my family.”
In 2000, Marinovich was arrested for sexual assault – a prosecutor later decided not to charge him, and Marinovich denies the allegation in his book. Years later, in 2016, he was arrested for drug possession while naked. Marinovich writes that the reason he was naked was because he was skinny dipping into what he thought was his in-laws’ swimming pool. It wasn’t.
“From my perspective, my point of writing about arrests is to be honest about everything,” Wright says. “Some books try to minimize the bad, and focus on the positive” – an approach she calls “not real-life or honest.”
Marinovich says he’s in a good place now. Residing in Hawaii, he watches his children grow, while creating the art that has served as his anchor and speaking out about the dangers of drugs in hopes of helping the next generation.
“I try to find balance,” he says. “I have to practice every day – practice to do the right thing, to be honest, to help someone else.”