There's still a place in my heart for Todd Marinovich.... | Trapped in Dirty Jerzee

It was a wonderful morning to wake up in America today, Thursday, Aug. 30 ... NCAA Div. I Football begins tonight! A few so-so teams like Rutgers and LSU will be on the tube here tonight to check out as I am stuck in New Jersey. The real football gets going on Saturday night at 7:15 PT and 10:15 EST when USC opens with Idaho and eventually takes a 35-0 lead with 6:35 left in the second quarter. Yeah, I'm excited for the Trojans! And then it happened. I open up the Newark Star Ledger and under the Sport Shorts Law-and-Order column the sentence hits me in the eyeballs - "Todd Marinovich, the former Los Angeles Raider quarterback whose career ended in mire of drug abuse is facing a possible prison term after a weekend arrest in Orange County, Calif..." Oh man Todd...

For those who don't remember or perhaps are too young, Marinovich was once a Trojan star under center. At one time as a youngster I considered the guy my football hero, and he is the main reason I became a USC fan as a middle-schooler. When he became a Raider after college it only made it better for me as a Raider fan. I can remember as a kid in the 80's watching ESPN's High School Sports America (anyone remember that show?) hosted by a young young Chris Fowler. Marinovich was on the show as a HS star out of El Toro High (someone correct me if I'm wrong). I became a fan from that and when he signed with USC, well you see where I'm going here. Meanwhile, all of my friends remained stupid obnoxious worthless Notre Dame fans. As a kid with Todd running USC I was lucky enough to see him play in New Jersey at the now defunct Kick-off Classic at the nasty dirty pathetic Giants Stadium. I was a kid sport fan in heaven. Ahh those were the days.

And now we read about Todd in even more trouble. The Associated Press report indicates Todd was still in jail yesterday (Wednesday) in Newport Beach on no-bail warrants for probation violation pending a Sept. 6 pretrial hearing. According to the story, Marinovich was "skateboarding in a prohibited area near the Newport Pier boardwalk on Sunday shortly before 1:30 a.m. when officers tried to stop him. I can picture it now, the poor guy probably stoned out of his mind doing sweet full-arc carving turns on a 47" Hypercarve Gravity Skateboard. Unfortunately for Todd and his family (remember his text-book definition hovering father Marv who basically can be blamed for some of Todd's current problems?) the former Trojan great ran off and was later found in a carport about six blocks away according to the report. He had a guitar case where officers found about a gram of methamphetamine, a metal spoon, and a hypodermic needle.

Obviously I realize this isn't the first time Todd has been in trouble with drugs since his NFL career fell apart before it got started, but it still hurts me. He was the reason I became a Trojan fan while living in New Jersey as a kid. I always despised my friends' fat drunk Irish fathers rooting for Lou Holtz and those little jerks. Rutgers back then was PATHETIC. And I was equally disgusted by Joe Paterno. So yeah, there still is a place in my sports fan heart for Todd Marinovich. I wish him well and hope he can one day overcome his current problems.

And come to think of it, looking back at his crazy father and all of that everyone knows about, I now go back and revisit the recent ESPN Magazine College Football Preview and only hope Louisville's Brian Brohm and his father Oscar look at the Marinovich family as a cautionary tale. No way am I saying the Brohms are "just like" Todd and Marv from years ago, but the way they are at least portrayed by ESPN Magazine, there are some similarities.

I'll always be a Marinovich fan but I also sure hope we never see another father-son disaster like that again.

GO TROJANS.