Todd Marinovich: Why QB's Story Should Serve as Cautionary Tale to NFL Teams

The Marinovich story is a sad one, and it isn't just about the failure in football. The subsequent legal and personal problems that followed the failed NFL career are even more bothersome.

When the ESPN film "The Marinovich Project" airs tonight, it will expose a story many college and pro football fans have long been aware of; but it will likely reveal even more than we knew.

For over 25 years, I have known this story to be the truest symbol of what can happen when a boy has what many describe as a football father.

For those that don't know what that is, it's a father who is so obsessed with their child's development in the game, they go to awkward and sometimes scary lengths to carve that path for the child.

Things like this set of oddities practiced by Marinovich's dad Marv, mentioned in the 1988 Sports Illustrated article, entitled: Bred To Be A Superstar:

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He has never eaten a Big Mac or an Oreo or a Ding Dong. When he went to birthday parties as a kid, he would take his own cake and ice cream to avoid sugar and refined white flour. He would eat homemade ketchup, prepared with honey. He did consume beef but not the kind injected with hormones. He ate only unprocessed dairy products. He teethed on frozen kidney. When Todd was one-month-old, Marv was already working on his son's physical conditioning. He stretched his hamstrings. Push-ups were next. Marv invented a game in which Todd would try to lift a medicine ball onto a kitchen counter. Marv also put him on a balance beam. Both activities grew easier when Todd learned to walk. There was a football in Todd's crib from day one. "Not a real NFL ball," says Marv. "That would be sick; it was a stuffed ball.

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It wasn't just Marinovich's dad obsessively controlling his environment. The article also stated that Todd was prohibited from watching cartoons, as they were deemed too violent by his mother.

I have children, and I understand the desire to put them in the best situations to succeed, and trying to protect them from the ills of society, but that's a lot of control, forced direction and pressure for a kid.

In light of Marinovich's professional and personal hardships, NFL teams should pay attention to the type of environment players they scout have been exposed to, especially the quarterbacks.

The pressure of carrying the load in the NFL is going to be great. If this young man has already endured this type of pressure throughout his life, is this experience going to break them?

No single position or role in sports is as pressure packed as being an NFL quarterback.

Is this really what this kid wants? Does he want it for himself, and not for his parents or family?

Barry Sanders walked away from the NFL, with by most accounts, at least three or four productive years left. After reading his biography, it seemed, Sanders had never gotten the opportunity to play the game for himself.

When he was a junior at Oklahoma State, he wanted to come back for his senior season, but his dad said the family needed his financial support. Throughout his NFL career, it seemed he was driven by accomplishing things for his dad, family and the city of Detroit.

Then, at the end, he decided he was done. No matter what others still wanted him to achieve, he was done.

Unfortunately for Todd Marinovich, the pressure ate him up before he could walk away on his own terms.