LOS ANGELES – Former NFL quarterback Todd Marinovich says
he was using heroin as he made comeback attempts in Canadian and
Arena football leagues.
"How can you play as an addict?" he said in a Los Angeles
Times interview. "I don't know. I don't know. I had been playing
so long, it was second nature and I probably could have played in
my sleep."
Marinovich pleaded no contest March 27 to a felony heroin
possession charge; he avoided a prison sentence by agreed to enter
a year-long drug treatment program.
Police found heroin in Marinovich's car when they pulled him
over in downtown Los Angeles Dec. 13 for driving without a license
plate. Marinovich, who had been in and out of methadone treatment
at the time, said he had just seen a dealer about an old debt, and
the dealer had left him the drugs as a going-away present.
If the police hadn't stopped him, he would have gotten high,
Marinovich told the Times, adding, "They saved me."
The 31-year-old said he has a long, progressing history of drug
use: He drank beer and smoked marijuana in high school to loosen up
with girls, then used hard liquor and cocaine at the University of
Southern California. His drug use led to several arrests, showdowns
with USC Coach Larry Smith, and the Raiders forced him to check
into the Betty Ford Clinic in the off-season.
The Raiders cut him in the summer of 1993, and the next year he
injured his knee weeks after signing with the CFL's Winnipeg Blue
Bombers. The three years after that he spent playing in a band
called Scurvy and getting hooked on heroin.
Marinovich launched a comeback in 1999, trying out for an NFL
scout and assuring reporters he had stopped using pot and cocaine.
He never mentioned heroin.
He said he planned to sign with a team in the CFL, which doesn't
test for drugs. After the British Columbia Lions signed him, his
drug habit only worsened, he said. The 6-foot-5 quarterback had
dropped to 185 pounds by season's end.
He tried to quit as he started playing for the Arena Football
League's Los Angeles Avengers last year, but started using again.
After he tested positive for drugs in May, he was confronted
about his addiction by a group including his parents, Trudy and
former NFL player Marv Marinovich, team owner Casey Wasserman,
coach Stan Brock and Garo Ghazarian, a former criminal defense
lawyer whose lost everything to a crack cocaine habit and now
lectures to groups about the dangers of drug use.
They pledged to stand by him, and Ghazarian has gotten deeply
involved in Marinovich's attempts at recovery. He has spent all his
free time at Avengers practices and games, and Marinovich stays in
a small bedroom in Ghazarian's home north of Los Angeles.
Although Wasserman wouldn't talk to Marinovich for weeks after
his arrest, the Avengers, who begin their season Saturday at San
Jose, are still taking a chance on him. He threw for 45 touchdowns
last season, including 10 in one game.
Marinovich said overcoming drugs is a daily struggle.
"I realize now it's life or death for me," he said. "When I
was in my addiction, I did something every day for it ... I scored
drugs. That's what I have to do today, go to any lengths like I did
before, but now in a positive way."
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