This story, by Larry Dorman, first appeared in the Jan. 22, 1984, issue of The Sporting News under the headline “Marino Is Quite a QB”, after Miami icon Dan Marino had become the first Dolphin ever to be TSN’s NFL Rookie of the Year.
MIAMI — The first real hint of what was to come occurred in the spring, when the first-round draft pick and the veteran quarterback stood side by side on the practice field throwing passes. The rookie's release was the harbinger.
If you saw a young Muhammad Ali throw a left jab, then you could say you had seen a quicker arm.
Spring fever, you thought then. This is a rookie quarterback. Next year, maybe, or the next, he'll be ready. Everybody says it takes that long for a rookie to figure out the difference between a double zone and man-to-man coverage in the pros.
Then came the real hint of when it was to come. That was after the season's fourth game, in a winning Miami Dolphins locker room in which puzzlement was the prevalent emotion. There had been five Miami fumbles and two intercepted passes, and the Dolphins had scraped by Kansas City with 110 yards passing.
Dan Marino stood near a wall, buttoning his shirt, alone. He had not said a word about the struggling Miami offense through the first four games. He had played the role of the careful rookie. He had made no waves, rocked no boats.
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"This has got to change," he said in a low voice. It was clear what he meant. The change came the next week after halftime and the next week for good. Everything changed with it.
The 1983 gold Corvette rolled to a stop in front of the store a couple of weeks ago and was surrounded by a wave of teen-age girls, young and middle-aged women and men. The driver stepped easily from the car and waded cooly through the throng, signing, smiling and occasionally, winking.
The change is now complete — Miamarino.
A city that thought it had seen it all is seeing with new eyes. A place that had grown accustomed to private men in the public position of quarterback for the past 13 years — Bob Griese and David Woodley — suddenly has awakened to a new age.
The quarterback of the future is the quarterback now, and Miami never has seen a better quarterback than this man-child with the golden hair, golden arm and the release that is quicker than anything except maybe his wink.
Dan Marino, 22, is a first in these parts, and in many other parts as well. He is the first rookie ever named by his peers to start in the Pro Bowl, the first rookie quarterback to lead his conference in passing since the merger, the first Dolphins rookie quarterback to lead his team into the playoffs, and now, the first Dolphin ever to be named The Sporting News Rookie of the Year.
And he was the last quarterback picked in the first round of last year's National Football League draft and began this season on the bench behind Woodley.
Now, behind the wheel of the Corvette, another autographs session behind him, Marino muses about all of this. He does so in an oft-handed way with the combination of boyish charm and adult guardedness that marks all his conversations. He never has said that the 26 teams picking ahead of the Dolphins made a mistake in overlooking him. He probably never will.
Suggest it to him, suggest that the Colts could have had him, the Chiefs, the Bills, the Patriots, the Jets — all the teams that picked other quarterbacks — and he looks at you and smiles. Then he winks.
“Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I was lucky. Look where I am."
Look where he is, in the playoffs, the Pro Bowl. Look where he's been since taking over as the starting quarterback in the sixth game of the season: He completed 173 of 296 passes for 2,210 yards and 20 touchdowns. He threw just six interceptions.
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There are some remarkable footnotes to the statistics. All but 240 of the yards came during his nine-game stretch as a starter, and Marino sat out the final two regular-season games with a knee sprain. His interception ratio was the AFC's lowest.
All of the teams that passed Marino up have scrambled for explanations, all with a familiar ring — bad senior year (Pitt “slipped” to 9-3), big head, bad attitude. The New York Jets, to whom the Dolphins always will be indebted for picking Ken O'Brien of California-Davis and leaving Marino for Miami, recently came up with a new one. A writer who covers the Jets said he was told by a management official that the Jets were concerned about the knee injury Marino suffered as a sophomore at Pitt. That was the year before Marino had his best year at Pitt.
"None of that stuff matters now,” Marino says. "Those other guys are all good quarterbacks. Where I was real fortunate was to land with a good team. Take a look. Three of our offensive linemen (center Dwight Stephenson and guards Ed Newman and Bob Kuechenberg) are in the Pro Bowl. (Tackle) Eric Laakso is on The Sporting News All-Pro team. Mark Duper made the Pro Bowl.
"And the defensive guys, Doug Betters, Bob Baumbower, they’re All-Pros. You don't ever do anything on your own. I had a lot of help."
A lot of it came from Coach Don Shula, who didn’t rush Marino into the lineup before he was ready. And even Shula, who professes never to be surprised, has to admit he didn't expect this.
"Dan has done things that were beyond anybody's expectations,” Shula said. "The truly remarkable thing about what he's accomplished is that he's done it in a way that it doesn’t seem unnatural. You can’t think of him as a rookie when you watch him step into situations and correct his own mistakes before you have to do it for him."
And you can’t think of him as a rookie when you see him in social settings, gliding around with the glittering folks at the debut of Burt Reynolds' latest movie, sitting around a tavern drinking beer with his teammates, casting this million-dollar grin at autograph seekers and representatives from clothing companies seeking his endorsements.
Marino quickly showed his grasp of the social graces. Hank Goldberg. a Miami radio and TV personality, was sitting in a local restaurant when the waiter brought him an unsolicited drink. Goldberg turned to see Marino giving a casual wave.
"It was the first time I can remember an athlete ever doing that in Miami,” Goldberg said.
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The kid from the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh learned quickly. It was there that he saw both sides of being the center of attention. It was there that his father, Dan Sr., and his mother, Veronica, taught him never to forget his roots and never to let his feet get too far from the ground.
Marino's bearing bespeaks a confidence that borders of cockiness but doesn't cross the line. It is a hair breadth this side of arrogance, a trait that every successful quarterback has. He has evoked comparisons to Joe Namath, and he shrugs them off. "I'm better looking than Joe,” he says with a wink.
Who knows? Someday, he might be better. period. For now. Marino is trying to keep everything in perspective.
“Success is a good feeling,” he says. "But you always have to look to the future and keep working. Outside of being with a great team and a great coach, I guess a lot of the success has come from being in a lot of pressure situations at Pitt, throwing a lot of passes in a lot of big games.
"Everybody here has been real helpful. (Reserve quarterback Don) Strock has helped me a lot.
"I had no idea things would turn out like they have. It's wild, isn’t it? I'm thankful.
"And I also realize that any time things could change and go the other way. That's why you have to keep working.”