MARINOVICH IN FIGHT OF HIS LIFE AGAINST DRUG ADDICTION

LOS ANGELES -- For a long time, Todd Marinovich hid his addiction to
heroin. The lanky quarterback had dropped out of football to play guitar in
a bar band, so hardly anyone noticed the weight loss, the drain of color
from his already pale complexion.

Even when he returned to the game, venturing to the Canadian Football
League two years ago, Marinovich kept a junkie's schedule.

Up early to get high before practice. Sneak off at lunch for another
injection. Then, with afternoon meetings done, "go home and use until I
went to bed."

The CFL does not test for drugs, and he was careful not to cause any messy
abscesses with the needle. On the practice field, he had the talent to get by.

"How can you play as an addict?" he says. "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."

Besides, his addiction found places to hide in the glitz and chaos that
have always swirled around him.

Born into Southern California folklore, he was a "test-tube athlete" whose
father had him do stretching exercises in the crib, literally raising him
to play quarterback. The prodigy led USC to a Rose Bowl victory and became
a rookie sensation with the Los Angeles Raiders.

When his behavior grew odd, when his hair grew long and he boasted of
surfing naked, people figured he was rebelling against a regimented
childhood. Brushes with the law, rumors of wild parties, bad endings with
both hometown teams -- all were similarly categorized.

Marinovich was getting back at his father, they said, by frittering away
his talent.

The extent of his reliance on drugs and alcohol did not begin to surface
until he returned from Canada in 1999, eyes dull, 6 feet 5 of skin and
bones because he had lost 30 pounds. Challenged by loved ones, he denied
everything but could see fear in their faces.

The lying and sneaking were about to end.

The turning point came last spring when Marinovich signed with the Los
Angeles Avengers of the Arena Football League. The team soon tested him and
found traces of heroin and marijuana.

There was a confrontation. Family and coaches huddled in an office at the
practice field, talking at him for hours. He promised to go straight but
was arrested in December with a small amount of heroin, caught minutes
before he could shoot up.

Now, in a deal with prosecutors, he keeps to a new kind of schedule: Up
early for a Narcotics Anonymous meeting before practice. Hurry downtown
each afternoon for a drug test. Another meeting at night.

At the same time, the Avengers -- who began the season Saturday at San Jose
- -- see some magic left in that 31-year-old arm, the way those feet move in
the pocket. He passed for 45 touchdowns last season, 10 in one game.
Imagine what he might do sober.

The team is taking that chance, though Coach Stan Brock muses, "You go to
sleep and think, 'Is Todd in bed?'"

Most nights, Marinovich drags himself home after rushing around in his
pickup truck, among the few possessions left from his NFL money. No time
for parties or girlfriends. He feels hopeful but says the truth can be hard
work after "so many years of lying."

Never before has he spoken about the heroin. The effort shows in wrinkles
that form at the corners of his eyes. His face still appears boyish when he
allows himself to smile, but his strawberry hair is sheared in a severe
way, shaved close to the scalp.

"I realize now it's life or death for me," he says. "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."

That includes facing not only himself, but also his father.

Marv Marinovich is intense, not the type to show affection easily. Once a
lineman for USC and the Oakland Raiders, he was already in the business of
training athletes when Todd was born and felt it only natural that he put
those skills to use with his son.

"Everything I did with Todd," he says, "I did with love in mind."

The teething on frozen chunks of kidney for nutrition. A training regimen
modeled after former Soviet Bloc methods. A dozen or so experts enlisted to
help with the boy's physiological and psychological development, prompting
the media to dub him "Robo QB."

"Through it all, (my father) did everything he could and used all his
resources out of love to help me reach a goal," Todd says. "Somewhere along
the way, people misinterpreted thinking it was his goal."

Todd wants to be clear on this point. Yes, his father could be difficult.
Yes, he harbors some resentment about the way he was raised. But he insists
his adult problems can just as easily be attributed to something else.

Early on, teachers noted his painful shyness. As a freshman in high school,
he hit upon a solution: Invited to parties with older teammates, Marinovich
began drinking beer and, soon after, smoking marijuana.

"I fell in love with pot," he says. "I finally felt comfortable in my own
skin. I was one of the guys. I could talk to girls I would never have
talked to before."

Thus began a double life. The squeaky clean kid who never ate junk food
recalls playing in a basketball game during his senior year at Capistrano
Valley High and hearing fans from the other school -- some of them football
players who partied with him on weekends -- chanting: "Marijuana-vich."

"I was supposed to be shooting free throws, but I was really glancing into
the stands," he says. "I was trying to see if my father noticed."

Marv was oblivious, maybe because he had never even taken an aspirin, maybe
because he did not want to know.

The partying escalated when Todd enrolled at USC, where he started as a
redshirt freshman in 1989, his picture in Sports Illustrated. He was a Rose
Bowl hero and a kid living away from home, making choices for the first time.

Choosing Jack Daniels over beer. Choosing to get high.

"If I would have kept it to weekends like a lot of the guys, I don't think
it would have affected me," he says. "But I wouldn't put the pot down. I
smoked through the week. I never smoked on game day, but it was still in my
system so it probably affected my decision-making and my motivation.
Definitely my motivation."

A pattern developed. In his sophomore season, Marinovich was punished for
cutting class and arriving late for a team meeting. His grades plummeted,
he argued with coaches.

As drug rumors grew louder, USC officials tested him often, but Marinovich
sneaked in someone else's urine. This trick could not salvage his
relationship with coach Larry Smith. Their sideline argument during the
1990 John Hancock Bowl -- coupled with the first of several arrests for
drug possession -- forced a showdown.

Smith ordered his quarterback to straighten out. Marinovich headed the
other direction.

"I tried cocaine my last semester and found I could party longer and drink
more," he says. "So I started using that."

Recovering addicts have a saying: It's a progressive disease. It can happen
over months or years.

For Marinovich, the next step was leaving school. The Raiders drafted him
in the first round, which meant a big signing bonus and a house at the
beach. That meant, as he puts it, "the party was on."

Just like in college, the rookie showed flashes of brilliance and became a
starter. But his inconsistent stretches worried team executives who had
quietly asked around USC before draft day and knew of his off-the-field habits.

Late in 1991, the Raiders tested him and detected an alarming blood-alcohol
level. Marinovich now admits the team made him check into the Betty Ford
Clinic in the off-season, but the 45-day program did little to change a
young man raised on tales of the rowdy Raiders.

"Play hard on game day and party hard afterward," he says. "I thought I was
doing what the Raiders were supposed to do."

The next season, he accumulated thousands of dollars in fines, mostly for
showing up late. His play suffered, he now says, because his brain was too
clouded to learn the game's nuances. The Raiders cut him in the summer of 1993.

Truth be told, he said, the game had lost its appeal. Within weeks of
signing with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1994, he injured his knee and
landed in a hospital back home in Southern California. It took only a
friend stopping by with a guitar to get him started on a new career.

The band was called Scurvy and it introduced Marinovich to a life of $60
gigs and harder drugs.

This was new ground, more than just the rebellion of an angry son, more
than the whim of a flake. Marinovich started out smoking heroin and liked
it not so much for the initial rush, but for the afterglow.

"I can only compare it to what the womb must feel like," he says. "The
outer world disappears and you are completely at ease."

At the time, he claimed to be living the life he wanted, but, at some
level, he realized his downward spiral was gaining speed. Each injection
brought less comfort, and his life declined from there.