Tony Mandarich Was NFL’s Biggest Bust; Then He Rebuilt His Life

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Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. They're some of our favorites. Tony Mandarich was considered the best offensive line prospect ever during his collegiate career at Michigan State. Legendary college coach Nick Saban, who was an assistant at the time at Michigan State and who discovered Mandarich, said that he was, quote, probably the most dominant offensive lineman that I have ever been around, end quote. Mandarich entered the NFL as the highest paid offensive lineman in league history. Then Mandarich's story was immortalized by two Sports Illustrated covers. One hailing him as the incredible bulk heading into the 1989 draft.

And then one in 1992 calling him the NFL's incredible bust as his four year career in Green Bay came to a halting end. Here is Mandarich to share his story. Growing up was actually fantastic for me. I had a great childhood, great parents, great siblings. And ironically, although we're talking about Our American Stories, I am Canadian. But I've spent most of my years, now 53 years old, most of my life has been spent stayside. And so growing up in Canada, to say that you played street hockey or, you know, on the road, you know, in your neighborhood was a common thing. And, you know, watching a lot of hockey and things like that, a lot of the stereotypes that Americans have and I think just people have of Canada are true. Very liberal country, tons of first generation immigrants, which my parents were. My parents came over in 1955 to escape communism from former Yugoslavia and to start a better life for their family and kids.

And that's basically what they did. So, you know, my childhood was great. It was just it was in the Greater Toronto area. We're 45 minute drive from Buffalo, three hour drive from Detroit. So when it came to NFL Sundays, I got to see a lot of the Detroit Lions and a lot of the Buffalo Bills.

And then when it came to college football, we'd see a lot of the Big Ten schools on TV. But, you know, to sum up my childhood, I would say a very accurate phrase would be, I definitely didn't have everything I wanted, but I definitely had everything I needed. It was all a great experience. And then as you grow up into your adolescent years, you start to have dreams. And I remember at age 11, which is pretty young, my oldest daughter, right.

I mean, my youngest daughter right now is 21. So when I saw her at 11, it was kind of a wake up call for me because you don't realize how young of a person that is when they're that age. And when I think about it, it was at 11, I took out a piece of paper and wrote down what I was going to be when I grew up or what I wanted to be when I grow up.

And that was to become a professional football player in the NFL and to become a professional photographer. You know, for me, these things were normal. As I grew older, I realized they weren't normal because not everybody did the things that I did. Not everybody took out a piece of paper and did short term, mid term, long term goals. For me, it was like, I don't know why I did that.

It seemed natural. And then, you know, and then I would at the end of the three months for the short term goals, if I'm not reaching those goals, the short term goals, I need to find out why. And if I don't know why, then I need to reset my short term goals and reset my midterm goals because my long term ones still might be the end game of making it to the NFL and then becoming a photographer or whatever. I had three years under my belt in Canada of high school football.

So by the end of my junior year, it was like, you know, we're talking 1982, 1983. There wasn't very many American colleges coming up to Canada to recruit potential football players. Yes, there was for hockey, but not so much for football because, you know, high school football and college football and pro football, those pinnacles are all stateside.

If you really want to be honest, I mean, let's not kid ourselves. If you want to, if football is your dream, you've got to go stateside. If hockey is your dream, you know, hope you're born in Canada.

So it's interesting. And I knew that after that third year, both my brother and I knew that we needed to make some kind of a decision that was going to help me get exposure and some American coaching. And Ohio at that time, where I ended up going for my senior year high school, you know, Ohio was one of the what they called the big three, one of the big three states for high school football.

It was Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida were the three biggest kind of states. So my brother was going to Kent State University at the time in Ohio, in Kent, Ohio, and we were kicking around the idea of me coming down there for my senior year, living with him. And he was going into a senior year of college. And I was going, I would be going into my senior year of high school. And for the really the sole purpose of getting exposure and getting some American coaching to, you know, become a better football player.

You know, we talked about it with my parents. And, you know, they were like, if that's what you really, really want to do, and they knew I wanted to, I had been, it was my whole life, it was, that's all I talked about. And, you know, my brother, you know, huge kudos to him for, you know, taking a sacrifice of bringing on your little brother who's a senior in high school and he's a big man on campus as a football player because he was having a very good career, ended up getting drafted in the first round in the Canadian Football League.

So, you know, he, he wanted what was for the greater good of his younger brother. And Kent Roosevelt High School had four or five athletes that were being recruited for full scholarships to Division One schools. So that was great for me because that would bring those scouts to our games.

And then hopefully, then it was up to me, then it was, now you need to get yourself noticed by playing above and beyond what you think you can play. And when we continue more of the life of Tony Mandurich, in his own words, here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love the stories we tell about this great country and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation, culture and faith, are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that are good in life. And if you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.

Go to hillsdale.edu to learn more. Leftovers. Or. The DMV. Or. House cleaning.

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No purchase necessary. And we continue with Our American Stories and the story of Tony Mandurich, who went from being one of the all time great draft picks to, well, bus town. And his life story, well, it's instructive on so many levels and so compelling. Let's return to Tony Mandurich and his own words about his own American story. Pieces fell into place and I ended up getting a scholarship offered at Michigan State. Nick Saban was the was a defensive back coach at Michigan State at the time, and he and Ohio was his area. So when, you know, after several meetings with with Coach Saban, when I was being recruited out of Carroll's about, I ended up signing with Michigan State. And that was their offensive line was juniors going into their senior year.

Most of their starters. So coming in as a freshman, the chances of starting are pretty low. But if you get a year of experience under your belt by getting red shirted by the second year, you know, with all those guys graduating the job's up for anybody, all those jobs.

So that was like a major decision for me on going there. Nick was a major decision the way he was, the way he was straightforward. There was no BS. There was no salesmanship in it. There was no sliminess about it.

There was no it was all straightforward. This is what we got. This is what we can do for you. And this can potentially be the result if you put the work in.

And I understand that language. And then, you know, the head coach was George Perlis, who was a four time Super Bowl winner as a defensive coordinator at Pittsburgh in the 70s. So that was a major decision because of George. I was like, if I want to get to that level, here's a guy that's got four Super Bowl rings recently. And he's going to be able to call a spade a spade and say, look, Tony, you just ain't got it. You just don't have what it takes.

And, you know, and there's nothing you can do as far as working at it that will make it better because you just don't have the athletic ability. You know, he's the type of guy that would say that to you. And he wouldn't say it to you in a malicious way. He'd say it to it in an honest way.

And if he did think you had ability, he'd say, you know what, you do have ability, but you have a lot of work to do. So, you know, you get there for camp. And once you got through camp, you know, you pick a roommate. And I had a great roommate, a great guy.

Still, you know, still keeping contact with him, John Buddy. And so I kind of did what I did when I was 11. I pulled out that piece of paper and started writing the goals for the next five, four to five years. And, you know, I wanted to become a starter. Then I wanted to become all Big Ten. Then I wanted to become All-American. And then I wanted to be the first player taken in the draft. And my roommate, whose brother at the time was playing for the Kansas City Chiefs, and his dad had played for the Kansas City Chiefs.

And I mean, iconic family as far as football in Kansas City and just phenomenal people. He was like, what do you know, what are you writing or what are you doing? I said, just write my goals down. And now they've known this guy for two, three weeks. He wanted to read them.

So usually that's something I would not share with anybody. So I let him read them and and you could see his face expression change as he got to the latter part of the list, because that's where it was like become the first player taking it, become All-American, then first player taken in the draft. And he was like, first player taken in the draft?

He's like, there's only one a year. And I said, I know. I said, why not it be me?

And, you know, that phrase of why not me became a very common phrase in my life, in my head, in my vocabulary, if you will. So, you know, every decision I made, I would ask myself, you know, is this get me closer to my goal or is this a distraction? But I was very careful on the decisions I made. And then if I saw like, oh, how would I describe it?

An unstable crowd of people. I had a choice to say, you know what, this is going to escalate probably at some point tonight. And do I really want to be around this and chance losing my scholarship and by getting involved with, you know, my ego not backing down from somebody because I might have more to lose than they do. You know, the five years I was at Michigan State, I chose to use steroids, not the best decision in the world. It was against NCAA rules, yet I still chose to use them because my gut feeling was that to make it to the next level at my position, you pretty much have to use steroids.

And that's not true, although I believe that that was something that a topic that I would not want to discuss with teammates or anybody because I knew it was wrong. And I thought it through and I thought about the worst potential thing that could happen. And I was like, no, I'm still willing to pay the consequence if that happens, because I felt that if I didn't do it, I wouldn't be giving it my all. You know, and did I cheat on drug tests? Yes, I did in college to pass drug tests.

You know, I was introduced to it by my brother. You know, I thought about it for months. And then and that's where that desire to become the greatest outweighed the desire of getting caught. There was obviously suspicions, but then there was obviously phrases like, yeah, but do you see how he works out? Yeah, but do you see that he's here before other people work out? And then he does the workout that is mandatory and then goes above and beyond and does his own workout.

You know, yeah, do you see that he stays here later than when everybody when they leave because he's doing film work or trying to get better at something? So, you know, if steroids were the only thing that had made me an All-American, all Big Ten lineup of the year twice, you know, American twice, you know, finishing and running for the Outland Trophy, finishing and running for the Heisman Trophy, being drafted second overall. If steroids were the only factor, then wouldn't most people have that kind of result? And I think there's a certain, you know, naiveness in society that you just take them and stuff happens. Well, you can take them and do nothing and nothing will happen. You have to do the work. You have to do the work regardless whether you're taking them or not. You have to do the work and you have to do it at a level that's higher than you ever thought you could do it. And you have to do it day in and day out.

And there's not many people that are willing to do that type of work in society for any career. Anybody Packers will make it official. First round, tackle Tony Mandarich, Michigan State. There was no doubt about that one. Well, you know, when I left college, I had stopped taking the steroids because I knew the NFL's testing system was much more sophisticated than college. And and there was enough rumors going around about the steroids in my name that I was like, you know what? I need to disassociate myself with that and kind of get away from it.

So I did. But almost immediately within a week, I had kind of, you know, filled that void with, you know, painkillers. I was like, all of a sudden, painkillers became I noticed when I took painkillers, a lot of the problems weren't as big as they were before I would swallow those seven or eight painkillers. And the alcohol came into play fairly heavily when it was difficult to get the prescriptions, because the demand for the prescription was, you know, you can't fill a narcotic too early.

So then you try to get multiple doctors writing multiple scripts to different pharmacies. And and it becomes a full time job. You know, it consumes your life. You know, it was before I got sober and even going into the last three years of my drinking and drugging. I had been kicked out of Green Bay in 92.

I didn't get sober till I was in March till March 23rd of 95. And after leaving Green Bay, I thought I can't get worse. And you've been listening to Tony Mandurich and boy, this is real and this is raw. And you're thinking, my goodness, how could a guy have blown it?

How could he have made that decision? But, folks, we've all been there. Tony Mandurich is real life story when we continue here on our American stories. Chumba casino always brings the fun. Play over 100 different games online for free from anywhere.

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And we continue here on our American stories. You're listening to Tony Mandurich. And my goodness, you've heard the story of how he got into the NFL, into the Green Bay Packers. And in the end, well, he had to stop doing the steroids.

He knew he'd get busted. And what he replaced it with was opioids and ultimately alcohol. And boy, there's a lot of pain involved in the NFL, especially training and training through the pain. And so now he was an addict of a different sort. Let's return to Tony Mandurich and his story.

After leaving Green Bay, I thought it can't get worse. And then two months later, my brother had passed away from terminal skin cancer. And nine to 12 months later, after my brother passes away, my parents get divorced after 40 plus years of marriage.

After everything they've gone through, escaping from communist countries, coming to Canada with no money and not knowing how to speak English and making it. That foundation was gone. And your hero and your mentor, my brother, was gone. And I was, I guess it'd be an understatement to say that I felt like an epic fail was right there in front of me. And, you know, things kept getting worse.

And I thought to myself, you know what? I'm going to stop saying things can't get worse because every time I say it, something bad happens. But it stayed bad for another year. And then, you know, what changed it for me was, you know, there was a conversation with a good friend of mine that was kind of like the final catalyst that made me make a decision on putting myself in treatment. But really boiling it down to what it really was, it was emotional pain. It was the pain of guilt, the pain of shame, the pain of letting people down, all those things. Had become greater than the desire to get high. It was consuming the desire to get high. It had overwhelmed that, you know, getting high at one time was a solution and it felt good. But at some point, that solution became the problem. And then you get yourself in a situation where, you know, you can't live with it and you can't live without it. And that's a tough one because it's a catch-22.

And where do I go from here? And you're a hamster on a hamster wheel. And all I needed then was that catalyst of that friend of mine reminding me that if you don't change what you're doing, you're going to die. And I was ready to hear it.

And I was like, OK, what can we do about it? Because everything I've tried and every way I've tried to stop has failed. And I'm not sure that it's in it for me.

I'm not sure that I'm supposed to get sober. And I never, ever was mad at God. I believed God in God the whole time. I was never mad at God. Why me? Internally, I never played a victim.

Poor, pitiful me. I was like, no, call a spade a spade. Even when I was messed up, I was like, you call a spade a spade.

Say what it is. You're a drug addict. I went into treatment in a treatment center in Detroit. You know, I always remember day five and day 11 of the 17 days or the two days I remember the most because they were the most impactful.

Day five, we had a meeting with a counselor with like eight patients that were inpatient, me being one of them. And she said, before we start the meeting, she said, I just want you all to take into consideration that your best thinking and your best plans in life got you here. And that was the Louisville slugger hitting me in the face.

I was like, wow, she's right. And at that time, every decision I made in my life brought me to that moment, sitting in that treatment center outside of Detroit. And I thought, God, I could have picked California or something nice.

You know, I'm here in Detroit, you know. And then at day 11, I started laughing again. And I didn't think that that would happen.

Not really in a genuine fashion. I thought that the fun was pretty much over for the most part. But I'd rather live a boring, sober life was better than living a miserable drinking and drugging life. I started laughing again just from us patients sharing stories amongst each other and some of the nonsense that we had done. And you could relate to the guy that worked for the municipality that was running a backhoe digging ditches in Detroit. You could totally relate to what he was saying. And here I was a pro football player and I understood exactly what he was saying.

And I understood exactly about his craving of he couldn't wait to get off of work and get home and, you know, pop some pills and drink some alcohol or get to the bar, whatever the guy could relate. And there was politicians in there. There was tall people, short people, fat people, skinny people, men, women, black, white, Asian.

In any culture you could think the disease did not discriminate. It took people's lives. But we all shared a very, very common thing. And it was the majority of the people's stories we could relate to.

You take away a few things that have to do with a job circumstance or whatever, or what role they played in their community or society. And you remove that, 80% of the rest of that person you can relate to 100% and feel their pain and feel their relief and feel everything that they've gone through. And you're like, gosh, you mean there's other people out there that feel this way and have gone through this and are going through this?

Because I thought I was unique and I was the only one. When we would laugh at that stuff, and I remember on day 11, sitting on my bed at the treatment center and my stomach was hurting from laughing. And that was the first, that was probably the first time in 10 years that my stomach had hurt from laughing. And I thought, you know, total opposite of what I thought would ever happen, I forgot all about that feeling of what that felt like.

And then my next thought was, you know, I'm not sure what's happening here, but whatever it is, I'm digging my nails into it and I'm not letting go. And then six, seven days later, I had left treatment. It was a 30-day program. I stayed 17. I was paying out of pocket and I was running out of money. And, you know, they said, you know, we want you to stay 30.

And I said, well, if you're willing to pick up the tab, I'll stay 30. And of course, you know, they're running a business too. And I understand. And I was like, you know, I feel that I get it. I get it. It's pretty crystal clear. And I'm sure that a lot of people say that to you guys. And then two days later, they're back out using.

I said, but I get it. And I know it's only been 17 days, but these instructions that you've given me for when I do leave to do these things, I've already started making calls to do these things and preparing. You know, when I did the statistics of X amount of people, percentages will stay sober for one week or less after they leave treatment.

And 30 days unless six months less than a year or less were staggering. And and then, you know, it's like less than one percent of the people will stay sober the rest of their life. And you've been listening to Tony Mandarich. And my goodness, the pain, the guilt and the shame were overwhelming and overwhelmed the desire to get high. Tony Mandarich was ready to change his life. And when we come back, we're going to continue his story.

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And we continue with our American stories and Tony Mandarich story. Let's pick up where we last left off when they did the statistics of X amount of people percentages will stay sober for staggering. And, you know, it's like less than one percent of the people will stay sober the rest of their life. And for me, that inner voice said, why not me? Well, I mean, why not?

Why not me be the one that does that? They need they need to fill a percentage. So I'll fill that percent. And and I've been sober ever since. I think in the first five years I was. Well, I know the first five years I was sober, I averaged a minimum of a meeting a day. A 12 step meeting. If there were some days I'd go to two. And it wasn't like I'd go to them because I felt like I was going to drink that day. It was like I was going to them to grow as a person, even sober. You know, you don't become a saint just because you get sober.

And when I left treatment, I had no intention, zero intention of going back to play. I was so happy to be sober because I thought that was impossible. I was so happy to be sober and actually laughing again.

The man with all time hit in that weather hit and that was football weather. I was like, oh, man, it's like I should be still young enough. I could still play. And and that desire started to come back. And I started working out again and, you know, no, you know, steroids, no nothing.

And it was getting stronger and everything was falling into place. And I thought, you know, I could try to make some rights out of the wrongs that I had done. There were some wrongs that I had done that were just not capable of making right because they were just so wrong and damaging. But I thought at least go make an attempt to go back if somebody even gives you a chance and kind of keep your mouth shut. Earn your earn your money for a change and give that organization, whichever organization that may be, everything you've got.

Leave nothing on the plate. And I was lucky enough to get that chance with Indy. And and I had made crystal clear with them that that they knew the whole story. And I told them everything.

I told them the truth. And I said, so really what you're getting is damaged goods and you're taking a chance. And why should a team take a chance on me? And I thought, you know, and I and I thought to myself, you know, why should a team take a chance on me? Because chances are I wouldn't because I knew once you get a chance. Now I have a chance to make it. Just because they sign you doesn't mean you make it.

But it's a step closer. And I know that if sobriety was impossible and it happened and I'm happy. The football was a detail because I already knew how to get there. I just had to do it without the steroids. And I knew that was possible. I knew the training techniques. I knew the fundamentals. I knew the foot speed thing.

I've been doing it my whole life. And I just had to start catching up because I was three years out of the league. And even at 20 years old, you're starting to get on the middle to latter part of a career. But I had played four and then been out three and, you know, abusing my body with chemicals. So and, you know, at the end of three years of Indy, it was time to retire because my shoulder had just took a beating. Going into it, I looked at more of it like just kind of make some amends, quiet amends, make some things right that were wrong, slay some internal demons and prove to yourself you can play without the use of steroids.

And those things happened. But in the bigger scheme of things and looking at the story and my whole story, that is a crucial, crucial element to the story that confirms and reiterates and that, you know, sobriety works and do things the right way. And you don't even have to be have a drug problem or alcohol. Just do things the right way the first time so you don't have to go back. If you ever get the opportunity to go back in anything, in school, anything, there's a much easier way to live. So when I had retired in 98, 1998 from Indianapolis because of my shoulder injury, I kind of took like I was going to force myself to take a month off of really not doing anything or looking for any kind of a job and just to kind of, you know, deprogram and just kind of take a breath because it seemed like it had been go, go, go since I walked into that treatment center. And, you know, that lasted about a week. And then I just pulled out a piece of paper and asked myself if I could be anywhere, live anywhere and do anything, where would it be and what would it be?

The answers were either Southern California, Arizona or Nevada. And so really the answer on paper was to move to Arizona and to become a professional photographer, which to me means you're that's what you're doing to make a living. And that's what I did. And, you know, you go from a multiple six figure salary, you leave that multiple six figure salary and you make thirty eight thousand dollars your next year doing what you love.

And a lot of people will say that that's not the greatest move in the world. But the value of being able to sleep at night carried more value than the paycheck. And don't get me wrong, paycheck is good and to be able to sleep at night is good.

But if it comes down to one or the other, I'd rather be able to sleep at night. But really, that's what I did. I followed what I love to do. And then it was like figure out a way to monetize it.

And that's what I did. And there's been great years of revenue and there's been not so great years of revenue with photography. But it's been in total relation to how much effort is put in by me. So, you know, it's fundamentals and it makes me think of people like Nick Saban and people like George Perlis and these coaches that have been not just those two coaches, but many more that I haven't even mentioned that have influenced the rest of my life via the football field because of how they taught. And at that time when we were on the football field, little did we know that they were not only teaching us about football, but they were teaching us about life. I know that they knew it.

But when you're 19, 20 years old, you're bulletproof. It's no, this is football coaching. And and that said, they were football coaching. But you take those fundamentals and you can apply them to anything and you'll have success if you execute them. That's why I think it's so important to share like this. Everybody has a story. And I think it's one of the most valuable things a person has is their story. And a lot of people will say their story is insignificant. And that's a bunch of B.S. because everybody has a story and everybody's story matters.

Because the biggest key is the person that you're sharing or the people that you're sharing your story with, if they can relate to your story. And I know they will. You know, OK, they won't be able to relate to go in a football camp for the most of most part.

99 percent of them won't. But they'll be able to relate to 99 percent of the rest of my story because pain is pain. You know, emotional pain is emotional pain.

Whether you're, you know, a mom raising kids at home, which is probably the toughest job in the world, to construction worker, a pro athlete, engineer, an architect, doctor, it doesn't matter what it is. Pain is pain. And I used to think I was unique, which almost killed me, and that my pain would be unique or was greater than other people's pain until I got sober.

And then I realized, you know what? You're no different than anybody. Everybody has hardships and not everybody pulls through hardships. So what's your what's your decision? Do you want to pull through this?

If you do, what's your motivation? And if you don't want to pull through this and kind of want to lay low and, you know, crawl in a cave and kind of hide and live that kind of a life, that's an option, too. But that's not the way I was wired. I was wired to try to make as much right of the wrongs that I had done and continue that, you know, the rest of your life. And what a story you've just heard. And we're talking about Tony Mandirich's story. By the way, what a remarkable thing the Indianapolis Colts did. You're getting damaged goods, he said to them, and you're going to have to take a chance on me. And in the end, we've got to take a chance on people, folks. Tony Mandirich's story, a remarkable American story.

Even though he was born in Canada, this was indeed an American story here on Our American Stories. So I suggest you sit back, keep your tray table upright and start getting lucky.