[ARETE] Crepeau review of Marinovich

[Schiavone, Michele]

Thank you, Dick, for this interesting review.

I was reminded of Michael Chabon's hilarious yet poignant short story "The Harris Fetko Story," which was based on Todd Marinovich.

It can be found in Paul Staudohar's Best Football Short Stories as well as a Chabon collection, the title of which escapes me right now.

It's one of my favorite pieces of sport Literature.

Michele Schiavone

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Sent: Saturday, August 9, 2025 11:20:10 AM
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All k below and attached Dick's review

Marinovich, Todd, with Lizzy Wright. Marinovich: Outside the Lines in Football, Art, and Addiction. Dallas: Matt Holt Books, 2025, 256 pages. $28.00.
Reviewed by Richard C. Crepeau

In February of 1988, Sports Illustrated (SI) profiled Todd Marinovich in a feature article titled “Born to Be a Superstar” labeling Marinovich “America’s first test-tube athlete.” From day one, Todd’s diet was controlled and his father Marv attended to the baby’s physical conditioning. Marv stretched Todd’s hamstrings and then had him doing pushups before he was walking. Marv devoted his life to developing Todd into the best quarterback in the history of football. No wonder Todd was labeled the Robo Quarterback.
In January 1919, SI once again did a feature story on Todd Marinovich who, at the time, was attempting to put his life back together following decades of lies, false starts, and drug addiction. There had been many attempts before and, in the end, he couldn’t defeat the addictions. He had been in rehab over seven times, been arrested more than ten times, and was jailed at least six times. He had been in jail so many times that “walk up music” (the theme from Welcome Back Cotter was played on his arrival.  That is where things stood at the beginning of 2019.
Marinovich was a star athlete, perhaps one of the best to ever play quarterback. He started at quarterback in his freshman year in high school and at the University of Southern California. He was taken in the first round of the NFL draft by the Oakland Raiders ahead of Brett Farve. Records were set at nearly every stop in his football career from youth football to semi-pro football at age 48.
Now in his early 50s, Todd Marinovich with Lizzy Wright has produced this remarkable memoir of addiction and disaster that defies belief and challenges credibility because of its jaw dropping revelations. Marinovich’s frankness is at times shocking and dumbfounding in what it reveals about his personal and public life as elite athlete and football hero.
Marinovich’s journey demonstrated the ability of the human body to perform at a high level while essentially dominated by drugs, alcohol, and insecurity. For those interested in the wild parties fueled by sex, alcohol, and drugs, Marinovich provides lurid details, found in few other memoirs, to the point that he warns the readers in advance that some of the material revealed is not suitable for a family audience.
Beyond the personal, Marinovich’s athletic life exposes the inability or unwillingness of athletic institutions to enforce its rules of conduct on their elite performers. Marinovich’s career is a prime illustration of that failure. In his college days at USC, his use of drugs was well known and never reported on in the press. One of the nicknames given him by fans of opponents was “Marijuana-vich,” which was chanted during games. At some level, his behavior was lightly regarded and not seen as a major problem.
As time passed and the problems multiplied, he would be disciplined and even dismissed, but his talent always was taken on by other teams and leagues willing to take risks for the “joy of victory.”
In this remarkable volume, Todd Marinovich goes back through his life in some considerable detail. His relationship with his father is at the center of the story. In part, this is due to the Marv Marinovich’s determination to create the perfect quarterback. In part, it is due to the fact that Todd’s relationship with his father is at the heart of his problematic and addictive character.
At several points in the narrative, Todd insists that his relationship with his father was a very good one. That Marv did not force Todd into football or into being the object of Marv’s theories of training. It is, however, very clear that Todd feared his father’s wrath and did everything to comply, or at least give the appearance of complying, to Marv’s rules and wishes. This mix of fear and love is at the center of the volitivity of the relationship and of Todd Marinovich’s life.
At several points in the narrative Todd discusses the centrality of lying in his life: to himself, to his father, to anyone in authority, or to friends and family. This, of course, raises the question of the honesty of this memoir.
The writing in Marinovich is smooth and breezy. The one criticism is the use of cliches, especially from sports. At times, this seems to take the edge off of what is a serious account of a tragic life. The lack of an index is another issue. In the end however, Marinovich offers enough insight into the culture of elite sport to make it well worth the effort.


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