Dan Marino's Life

Daniel Constantine Marino, Jr. was born on September 15, 1961 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dan always loved sports, and his family helped him play as much as possible. His dad worked nights, but he coached Daniel's Little League baseball team. He also spent some afternoons playing catch with his son Dan. Dan's grandpa lived only a few blocks away, right next to Pittsburgh Pirates star Willie Stargell. Willie sometimes would play wiffle ball with his grandson. In high school Marino starred as shortstop and pitcher. The Major League Baseball team the Kansas City Royals tried to sign Dan, but he wanted to play a different sport rather than baseball. Dan began playing in tackle football leagues in the fourth grade. He always played QB. By his senior year in high school, Dan also started as punter and place kicker. But his best work in football was being a quarterback. That season, he threw 16 touchdown passes. One of the reasons why Dan decided not to play baseball was because he wanted to go to college. He had received a scholarship to play football for his hometown school, which was the University of Pittsburgh. The school was called "Pitt" and he football team was called the Panthers. As a star football player, Marino was a local hero. Even before his first game Dan was big news at college. He grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was playing for the hometown school. In the middle of his 1st year, Marino earned the position of starting quarterback. That season, the team finished with 11 wins and 1 loss. Dan led the Panthers to 4 bowl championship games, or post season games, in four seasons. Each bowl game was on TV so people watched Dan play across the United States. When he finished college, Pitt retired his jersey number. No player at Pitt was allowed to wear #13 on their jersey ever again. The NFL team, the Miami Dolphins, used its first college pick to choose Marino. As a first round choice and as quarterback, fans and reporters thought Dan should be a star right away. He started only 9 games that year, but threw 20 touchdown passes. Dan helped Miami get to the playoffs. In his second season, Dan played like a veteran. he tossed forty-eight touchdown passes, the highest ever in his football career. Marino added another 1,001 yards to his total in the 3 playoff games that the Dolphins played in 1984. This passer from Pennsylvania gave the Dolphins its first conference title in more than ten years. The Dolphins won the American Football Conference (AFC) in 1984. They went on to play the winners of the National Football Conference (NFC), the San Francisco Forty-Niners, in Super Bowl XIX (19) on January 20, 1985. But the 49ers won with a score of 38 to 16. More than 10 years later, Marino would still be waiting for a chance to earn a Super Bowl winner's ring. For the first four years after the Super Bowl, the Miami Dolphins could not even win enough games to get to the playoffs again, let alone to the Super Bowl. Dan's outstanding passes alone couldn't make the Dolphins champions. Fans remember when the Miami Dolphins won the Super Bowl two years in a row, 1972 and 1973, ten years before Dan went to the Dolphins. They wanted him to help them win even more Super Bowls. At Dolphins games, some fans would boo Marino for making mistakes. Since quarterbacks are in charge of calling plays, Dan would be blamed for bad plays or mistakes more than his other teammates. When fans think of his career, they think of it as the best career ever. He is a wonderful football player. He is still living and is currently fifty-one.