The Prodigal’s Return : Surfer, Snowboarder, Fisherman and Artist, Todd Marinovich Wants to Be a Quarterback Again

It wasn’t the Sundays. Todd Marinovich, surfer, painter, idiosyncratic quarterback who once dyed his bright red hair black and surfed naked, could handle the hulking 350-pound men whose livelihoods depended on leaving him crumpled under their massive bodies during games.

It wasn’t the fun days. Marinovich found the challenge of bonding with 10 well-trained teammates who counted on him to be an overpowering tonic, as overpowering as victory itself.

“It was everything (else) that goes along with being a starting quarterback in the NFL (that) I was glad to be away from,” Marinovich said this week, talking publicly for the first time since the Raiders released him Aug. 31.

“Not Sundays. I could do that Sunday thing forever.”

But when does forever end? It ends unceremoniously on a practice field during the heat of Southern California’s summer. It ends in frustration and disappointment, and yet undeniable relief. It ends after 19 consecutive football seasons. It ends quickly, quietly, far from the public eye.

It ends with a beginning.

Without so much as a word, Marinovich disappeared into the hinterland--surfboard, snowboard, rod and reel, video camera and art supplies in tow. He decided it was time to find out what he had missed by playing football since he was 5 years old.

“If the Raiders didn’t release me, I don’t know if I would have released myself,” he said. “I was at the point where it was almost a pleasure (to leave). It was therapeutic, every month and every day of it.”

His family, although disappointed, encouraged him to find himself, to travel a new, adventurous path. If he returned an artist, fine. If he returned a surfer, well, that was all right too.

So off he went . . . to Aspen, Colo.; Jamaica, South America and Hawaii. He spent peaceful days fly-fishing on Colorado rivers. In the Rockies, he reflected on a career that was shaped at Santa Ana Mater Dei and Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley high schools, then continued at USC for two tumultuous seasons before the Raiders selected him 16th in the 1991 draft.

Back home, Marinovich concentrated on painting for the first time. Before, there was the pressing need to train. The art always suffered.

“I could get as creative as I wanted, without any obstructions like I’ve had my entire life,” he said. “And if there was a killer swell that came in, I could (surf) and put the art aside for a while.”

That’s all he had to worry about.

“That was nice,” he said.

And now Marinovich has returned. At 24, he is ready for another shot at the NFL. But is the NFL ready for him?

A quarter of the NFL teams needed starting quarterbacks during the off-season. All seven made changes, none that included Marinovich. And with spring mini-camps coming up, it is getting late to learn a new system. Yet, Marinovich says he will decide where to play by June.

“That’s the great thing about what I do,” he said. “There’s just not a lot of people who can do it. And I don’t think there are that many good ones.”

Marinovich, who started seven games in his second full season with the Raiders, has the potential to develop into an outstanding quarterback. But it never quite happened in Los Angeles, where Raider officials hinted that his off-field behavior, not his ability, was the reason he was demoted to third string and then released.

Marinovich’s release did nothing to help an image already tarnished by his well-chronicled battles with Coach Larry Smith when both were at USC. When the Raiders, of all teams, gave up on Marinovich, others had to wonder.

“I can’t believe (Raider owner) Al Davis would cut a great player,” said Larry Lacewell, director of college scouting for the Dallas Cowboys. “If Charlie Manson could throw the ball, he’d keep him.”

Said another NFL insider: “The Raiders are considered to be the most tolerant franchise when it comes to personal peccadilloes, troubled lives, and if he couldn’t make it with them, where could he make it?”

Marinovich says little about why he was released. Before the Raiders told Marinovich he was gone, Davis tried unsuccessfully to reach Todd’s divorced parents, Marv and Trudi. It was a courtesy from an old friend. Instead, Davis found Todd’s grandfather, Henry Fertig, in the press box at the Coliseum.

“I’ve known Todd since he was a kid,” Davis told Fertig. “He used to play with my kid. (But) I’m going to cut him. He’s been missing meetings, not doing what he is supposed to do.”

Fertig asked if the problem was drug-related. Rumors had shadowed Marinovich since January of 1991, when he was arrested for possessing cocaine and marijuana. The charges were dropped after he had completed a one-year counseling program for first-time offenders.

Davis said drugs weren’t a problem.

“His situation was whether or not he was going to be able to make himself responsible to the profession and to his career,” said Steve Ortmayer, director of football operations for the Raiders.

Ortmayer said lots of teams think Marinovich is too big a risk. The Raiders, he said, tried everything, including counseling.

“He’s had all that,” Ortmayer said. “He’s had large doses of it.”

Marinovich said he has not experienced a backlash since putting himself back on the market. He says other clubs are not concerned about the Raiders. The day he was cut, he said, others called. He declined because he wanted time away.

But even Marv Marinovich, Todd’s father and trainer, is surprised by the lack of a firm offer.

“There’s something that seems out of whack,” he said.

Marinovich will not name the NFL teams that have shown interest, saying only that he will be playing anywhere from “Saskatchewan to Tampa Bay” next season.

Actually, he is thinking of Manitoba, home province of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who hold Marinovich’s Canadian Football League rights. Marinovich tried out at a Blue Bomber mini-camp in Tennessee last week. With his size--6 feet 4--and talent, he has the potential to be successful in the CFL, but would be hard-pressed to start in Winnipeg, where Matt Dunigan is the Joe Montana of Canadian football.

Still, Winnipeg coaches were impressed with Marinovich’s performance--on and off the field.

“Todd’s done some growing up,” said Mike Kelly, the Blue Bombers’ offensive coordinator. “What I see is a young man who has been humbled, who is looking for another opportunity. He realizes he blew it and understands what he has to do.”

Marinovich thinks he is doing it. He has been training in earnest with his father three times a week in Laguna Hills, and throwing with former Raider teammates on other days.

After he left the Raiders, Todd had little contact with Marv, the man who molded him into a pro-style quarterback from the crib. Marv said last January he did not know his son’s whereabouts.

“I’ve tried to stay away and let (Todd) handle his own situation,” Marv said at the time. “I just felt it would be better if he just started making those decisions and doing what he’s going to do.”

The hands-off approach seems to have worked. Marinovich said he returned to his father’s system because it is like returning to basics.

“By now, I know what’s best for this body,” he said.

Marv said his son has been more focused than in years.

“I like being around him when he’s like this,” he said. “It is like he was when he was a kid.”

Said Todd: “I feel good about myself. I do.”

Subtle changes have shaped Marinovich’s apparent transformation. He cannot pinpoint the defining moment but recalls a recent life-threatening experience on Oahu’s North Shore as at least a lesson in survival, if not perspective.

After hooking up with professional body board rider Matt Allen, an old buddy from Mater Dei, Marinovich was challenging some of Hawaii’s famous winter waves last January instead of testing NFL secondaries. One day he and Allen paddled out at a favorite North Shore break known as Off-the-Wall.

“This set (group of waves) popped up out of nowhere, and I couldn’t make it out so I had to bail the board and was caught on the inside (of a wave) without a board to use as a flotation,” Marinovich said. “Matt was up over the waves yelling at me, ‘Paddle that way.’ (The current) sucks you right down to Pipeline.

“Before I knew it, I was looking up at these 12-foot waves. Right at Back Door (Pipeline) getting hit on the top of the head. Panic was about to set in and my legs started cramping. I finally hit the reef and had some leverage to push my way to shore. It was the (most scared) I’ve ever been. I think back on it, how you can be here one minute, gone the next. It’s good for you.”

At least, it was good for Marinovich, the one-time quarterback prodigy. It was good for the soul, good for him to realize how fleeting life can be. And how much fun football is.

It was never the Sundays.