Dan Marino
When quarterback Dan Marino (born 1961) was still available late in the first round of the 1983 National Football League draft, the Miami Dolphins were sur-prised and delighted. Marino set many major passing records over 17 seasons before retiring after the 1999 season, while leading the Dolphins to 10 postseason appearances and one Super Bowl. Marino, inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005, went on to become a broadcaster and product endorser after his retirement from professional football.
Raised in Blue-Collar Neighborhood
Marino grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's, working-class Oakland neighborhood. His father, Dan Sr., worked the graveyard shift delivering bundles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and threw footballs in the backyard with his son. Young Marino, who rooted for the Pittsburgh Steelers as a youth, played his early football on a street so narrow that teams had four players maximum; the end zones were telephone poles and curbs constituted the sidelines. Buses and cars often served as the linebackers he had to dodge. "If Marino didn't have anything else to do, he threw at the telephone poles," Larry Schwartz wrote for ESPN Classic.
He emerged as a Parade magazine All-American while at Central Catholic High School. Marino pitched and hit so well that the Kansas City Royals selected him in the fourth round of baseball's amateur draft, but Marino rejected the team's offer of a $35,000 signing bonus in order to play college football instead, at the University of Pittsburgh, just five blocks from his home. "Something, maybe my heart, told me to stay home and go to Pitt," he told Schwartz.
Had Ups and Downs as Panther
Halfway through his freshman season, Marino became Pittsburgh's starting quarterback and never looked back. The Panthers reeled off three straight 11-1 seasons, winning the Fiesta, Gator, and Sugar bowls. In Marino's junior season, 1981, Panthers Head Coach Jackie Sherrill turned his quarterback loose with a more wide-open offense and Marino responded with 37 touchdown passes, which led the entire National Collegiate Athletic Association, and 2,876 yards with a nearly 60 percent completion rate. He saved his best for last that year. Facing Georgia in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, and with the Bulldogs still having an outside shot at a national championship, Marino stared down a Georgia blitz and hit tight end John Brown with a 33-yard touchdown pass with 42 seconds remaining to give the Panthers a 24-20 victory. Moments earlier, Marino had talked Sherrill out of attempting a game-tying field goal.
Pittsburgh ended the 1981 season ranked fourth in the Associated Press poll, and the Panthers harbored national title hopes the following season with Marino back for his senior year. Marino, however, threw more interceptions than touchdowns (23 to 17) and Pittsburgh finished 9-3 - disappointing compared with expectations. The last two games were especially disappointing. The regular-season finale was an embarrassing 48-14 loss at home to in-state rival Penn State, and the Panthers failed to score a touchdown in a 7-3 defeat to Southern Methodist in the Cotton Bowl. "The bottom fell out my senior year at Pittsburgh," Marino wrote in his book, Dan Marino: My Life in Football, excerpts of which appeared on the Pro Football Hall of Fame Web site. "It's never fun to play poorly or to be questioned. It certainly wasn't for me that senior year at Pitt. But I think it served me well to learn how to handle everything that came with the game's ups and downs. Some people call it growing another layer of skin. I just call it growing up."
Dolphins Needed a QB
Marino's mystifying senior slump befuddled many observers - and him - and dropped his value on draft day. That the player pool was stocked with promising quarterbacks - Schwartz called it the "Quarterback Class of '83," - didn't help Marino, either. Quarterbacks John Elway, Todd Blackledge, Jim Kelly, Tony Eason, and Ken O'Brien all went ahead of Marino. Other teams that had expressed their interest took running backs and defensive tackles. Miami, meanwhile, had liked what they saw of Marino at the annual scouting combine in Indianapolis but assumed he would not be available late in the first round, when the Dolphins were scheduled to pick 27th, or next to last.
Marino received a phone call from Miami coach Don Shula. "Hey, you want to come to Miami? Because we need a quarterback," Shula said, as Marino recalled in his book. Marino's reply: "You bet." Miami had reached the Super Bowl three months earlier, losing 27-17 to the Washington Redskins, but the Dolphins lacked the franchise quarterback they were missing since Bob Griese retired in 1980.
Still, Marino had some critics to silence. "I worked my butt off that summer in hope of making a good first impression," Marino wrote in his book. The young quarterback had a good team around him. The Dolphins had reached the Super Bowl with a standout defense and a strong offensive line that anchored a ball-control offense in the absence of a high-scoring attack. Shula, once Marino was ready, would let the Dolphins open up offensively. "Right from the start, Don Shula was the perfect coach to help develop me into [a quarterback] quickly."
Three games into the 1983 season, Marino took over from David Woodley as starting quarterback. In 1984, he blossomed into a star. He set two headline-grabbing, single-season records: most touchdown passes (48, which Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts broke in 2004) and most yards completed (5,084). He impressed other coaches and media for his maturity as well. "Quite frankly, Marino just doesn't make mistakes," Paul Attner wrote in the Sporting News in November of 1984. "Remarkably, Marino goes about his destruction so easily, so calmly, so naturally, that you forget he was in college just two years ago or that he is confronting complex defenses that are employing every possible sleight-of-hand to confuse the young lad or that even an esteemed coach like Tom Landry once said it takes every five years to mature into an NFL quarterback." Hall of Fame defensive back Ronnie Lott said, as quoted on the ESPN Classic Web site: "You were basically at Dan's mercy. All the great ones see the game so quickly that when everybody else is running around like a chicken with their head cut off, they know exactly where they want to go with the ball."
Marino and the Dolphins won the American Football Conference championship in 1984, avenging a home upset loss to the Seattle Seahawks in the playoffs a year earlier. Super Bowl XIX featured Marino against another of the game's best young quarterbacks, Joe Montana of the San Francisco 49ers. Montana, already with a Super Bowl title under his belt, was the game's Most Valuable Player three years earlier. After two weeks of Montana vs. Marino headlines and sound bites, the quarterbacks and their teams met at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, California. Though the Dolphins led 10-7 after the first quarter, the rest of the game was all 49ers. They led 28-16 at halftime and won 38-16, and Montana had another Super Bowl MVP award. Marino, with his team playing catch-up all day, completed 29 of 50 passes for 318 yards, threw for one touchdown pass and had two interceptions. The 49ers sacked him four times.
His Commercial Value Rose
Despite the Super Bowl defeat, Marino's value as quarterback and commercial endorser soared. Soft-drink bottler Pepsi took advantage of the Montana-Marino hype and featured both in a television ad shortly after the game. "Joe, next year I'm buying," Marino said in the ad, after Montana bought him a Pepsi at a machine. Marino also endorsed Isotoner gloves after Aris-Isotoner vice president Richard Rubin chose the quarterback over race-car driver Mario Andretti and a heart surgeon. The company's slogan was "Take care of the hands that take care of you." According to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, Rubin said Isotoner's sales increased by 500 percent over the first five years of Marino's marketing agreement, which ended in 1994 with a management turnover. "The Isotoner ads have been off the air for more than a decade, but people still ask Marino about them," Jackson wrote. "In the winter, Dan can walk down the streets of New York and get Isotoner comments," Marino's marketing manager, Ralph Stringer said in Jackson's article. "A person will say, 'I saw your commercial [very recently].' I say, 'You didn't see that commercial.'"
Marino never played in another Super Bowl, despite the Dolphins' many playoff appearances. In 1985, they hosted the AFC title game but lost at home 31-14 to a New England Patriots team that had not won in Miami since 1966. Miami also came up one victory short in 1992, falling at home 29-10 to Buffalo. Marino had talented receivers in Mark Clayton and Mark Duper, but the defense faltered over the years and there was never a running game solid enough to balance the offense. "We used to laugh when we heard every single year that the Dolphins were committed to the running game," said Kelly, the quarterback who led Buffalo to four straight AFC titles from 1990 to 1993 and is in the Hall of Fame. "They never had a running game, and we knew if it came down to it, it was going to come down to No. 13 [Marino]."
Marino, who stayed healthy in an injury-prone position for most of his career, set 25 NFL records and shared five others. Shula resigned as coach in 1995, opting for an executive position while Jimmy Johnson, who had won titles with the Dallas Cowboys and the University of Miami, took over on the sidelines. In his final season, 1999, Marino threw more interceptions (17) than touchdown passes (12) for the first time since his senior year in college. After an embarrassing 62-7 playoff loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, Marino announced his retirement. His regular-season career statistics included 4,967 completions in 8,358 attempts for 61,361 yards and 420 touchdowns. He was named to the All-Pro first or second team eight times and all-AFC six times. Marino also played in nine Pro Bowls.
Turned Down Executive Position
The Dolphins retired Marino's number, 13, the following season. He, quarterback Bob Griese (12), and running back Larry Csonka (39) are the only players so honored by the franchise, which began play in 1966. Marino was elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 2005.
Marino has been busy as a broadcaster for CBS and HBO; in 2004, three weeks after agreeing to become the Dolphins' senior vice president of football operations, he abruptly quit. "Dan Marino made the best audible of his life," Joe Schad wrote in the Palm Beach Post. "He didn't realize what he had gotten himself into. He didn't realize how many hours at the office this would require." Schad saw the hiring as celebrity window dressing. "[Owner Wayne] Huizenga was the restaurant owner. [General manager Rick] Spielman was the chef. [Head coach] Dave Wannstedt was the waiter. And they would let Marino make a few plate decorations. It was absurd. Marino, the greatest and most popular player in the history of the Dolphins, should not have lowered himself to that."
Marino is still in demand for endorsements. Late in 2005 Marino was endorsing Samsung Electronics, among other companies. "Even five years after retirement, Marino remains ubiquitous," Jackson wrote in the Miami Herald. "Marino has become one of the rare celebrity athletes whose popularity has endured long after he left the field." He is still visible in broadcast and print ads and on billboards, and has dabbled in film. "He represents quality based on the career he has established," said Ralph Stringer, who handles Marino's marketing deals. "Danny comes across as the boy from Pittsburgh. He's believable," Stringer told Jackson. "He has achieved the best, so you think he would associate with the best."
Periodicals
Palm Beach Post, February 4, 2004.
Online
"100 Greatest College Football Endings," Collegefootballnews.com, http://www.collegefootballnews.com/Almanac/Top_100_Finishes/100_Best_College_Football_Finishes_40_31.htm (December 19, 2005).
"Dan Marino: My Life in Football," Pro Football Hall of Fame, http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/enshrinement/release.jsp?release_id=1586 (November 22, 2005).
"Marino's Golden Arm Changed the Game," ESPN Classic http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Marino_Dan.html (November 22, 2005).
"Nobody Does It Better," Sporting News, November 5, 1984, http://www.sportingnews.com/archives/marino/1984.html (November 22, 2005).
Pro Football Hall of Fame, Dan Marino profile, http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/member.jsp?player_id=238 (November 22, 2005).
"Thriving in the Pocket," Miami Herald, August 7, 2005, http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sports/columnists/dan_le_batard/12277863.htm (December 19, 2005).
