ESPN premiered “The Marinovich Project” last week, offering up close and personal views of the way Todd Marinovich was raised to play football under his father Marv’s relentless training. This story was especially interesting to me, as I am about the same age as Todd, and even back in the 1980’s (before the internet!) I remember hearing about this “bionic QB” being built out in California by his dad. Unlike today, where high school athletes are regularly talked about on ESPN and other national sport outlets, for us to even hear — much less watch video — of a high school quarterback from the west coast was simply unheard of. I remember seeing Marinovich on television and hearing about all the hype surrounding how he was literally “built” to play football – and how his dad controlled his every meal and put him through unbelievable training workouts.
Since first hearing about Marinovich in high school, I continued to watch from afar as he went on to play college and professional football, and I went on to graduate school to study human thinking and behavior. While I never obsessed on Marinovich, he was always in the back of my mind, especially later in my professional counseling career when meeting with parents at my office that seemed to be obsessed with their kid’s athletic development. After watching Marinovich burn out from football, his story (sadly) served as an example I used with parents who were clearly going too hard with their kid.
What one famous behaviorist once said…
Interestingly, I remember in graduate school learning about the famous behaviorist John Watson, and specifically learning about his claims that if he could control all the surroundings of a kid from birth onto adulthood, that he could essentially develop the kid into anything he wanted (i.e. a doctor, artist, accountant, etc.). His argument was that environment, not genetics, play a much bigger role when it comes to human development. In the Marinovich example, one could easily say Watson’s theory may have held up – at least for a short while. While Marv did seemingly develop his kid into an elite-level QB, the price they both paid for the efforts seems to have been a hefty one indeed (ESPN revealed their personal struggles in the program – Todd with drugs, and Marv with failed marriages).
Some of my other observations from the Marinovich program included:
- This was a perfect example of erroneous human thinking – we often believe if somebody is “good” at something, they must also love doing it. Todd admitted he liked playing football, but to objectively parse out that he “loved” playing was rather difficult, especially with his militant-style father never giving him a chance to experience life without football.
- The pursuit of playing in the NFL seemed to serve as a utopia for the Marinovich’s, leaving Todd in no-mans land once he finally made it to the league. What do you do for the rest of your life once you have played in the NFL at the age of 21?? Todd struggled with this, and admitted on the program he really didn’t know what to do “next” as this was his end-all, be-all lifelong pursuit.
- Marv Marinovich appeared to be a very loving and caring father, but also a troubled one. He clearly obsessed with Todd’s development, even to the point of losing jobs and marriages. Supporting your child is one thing, but living your entire life through your child is another.
- It was really no surprise for me to learn about the drug usage Todd admitted to while playing football. Of course, it’s never advised to recklessly use street drugs, but in the case of Todd Marinovich it’s easy to see why he would turn to drugs (or anything for that matter) that would provide a respite from all the pressure and expectations placed upon him. Again, this doesn’t excuse or endorse the behavior, but instead hopes to explain it.
- I found Todd to be a very interesting, thoughtful, and caring guy. Most of us simply saw him as some kind of super-human machine when we first heard of him in the 1980’s, but after all that he has been through he came off in the program as a level-headed and cerebral guy. No bitterness, no animosity, and no hatred toward his dad (or anyone else). If anything, he appeared more confused by all that has happened the last 25+ years of his life – almost as if he had been on the sidelines watching his life play out based on a story written by his dad.
I’m sure there are other parents out there today similar to Marv Marinovich, obsessed with their child’s athletic development to the point where all other life pursuits are thwarted. This is unfortunate for a number of reasons, the least being the fact that even with 24/7 training the pursuit of one day becoming a professional is still an unbelievable long-shot for most kids (even if John Watson would think differently if he were alive today!). Not only are the odds against “making it” (even Todd Marinovich admitted to his God-given talents being just as, if not more important as his training was), but leading an imbalanced life as Todd did often sets people up to be unprepared in many other important ways. Even in the best-case scenario when an athlete does “make it,” the average professional sports career is only 3-4 years, making holistic life skill development that much more important than exclusive sport training.
Every sports family should watch the Todd Marinovich story and talk openly as a family about the tradeoffs that often come part and parcel with 100% devoting to sport development. At the end of the day, we should, at minimum, learn a few basic things from this story:
– While it sounds great in theory, John Watson’s original idea of creating a persona (i.e. a football quarterback) is really more of a talking point for balancing nature vs. nurture when it comes to personality development. To try an control a young persons surroundings like Marv Marinovich did is not only unhealthy, but potentially dangerous.
– When people feel overwhelmed, pressured, and don’t see a way out of their circumstances, it is very common for them to turn to drugs, alcohol, or a number of other reckless and dangerous behaviors. The short answer for this is that they provide a temporary “break,” or respite, so that the individual doesn’t have to continue to stress out over his or her circumstances.
– Perhaps the biggest oversight by Marv Marinovich was that while he taught his son how to succeed on the field, he apparently stopped short of teaching Todd how to use his athletic skills off the field. When an athlete compartmentalizes all his learning through sport into only being useful in sports, he has missed an incredibly invaluable learning opportunity. Ironically, Todd Marinovich learned countless athletic transferable skills (i.e. discipline, teamwork, goal setting, etc.), yet was never taught how to parlay those skills into everyday life experiences (like learning how to successfully deal with stress).
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