Dan Marino Biography

Dan Marino, Jr. was born and raised in 1961 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Young Dan started playing sports in high school, and he excelled in particular at football; he was elected as an All-American and offered an opportunity to play football for the University of Pittsburgh, which he did from 1979 to 1982. In his college years, Marino led his team to a number of triumphs, including one crucial win over West Virginia in 1979 and another over Georgia in 1982.

By the end of his college football career, Dan Marino had been consistently placed in the top five in the rankings, and upon graduating he joined the Miami Dolphins. During his time with the Dolphins, Marino broke multiple NFL passing records and was selected as the NFL’s most valuable player. He went with the team to the Super Bowl XIX, and remained with the team until the turn of the new millennium, which marked the beginning of his retirement. As a player, Dan Marino ranks at number twenty-seven on the Sporting News list of the greatest football players, and at twenty-five on NFL’s Top 100 Greatest Players List. He has been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

Since retiring, Dan Marino has served as an analyst for HBO’s Inside the NFL and CBS’s The NFL Today. He has also opened two restaurants in South Florida, called Dan Marino’s Town Tavern (in Coral Springs and Ft. Lauderdale.) Although he later opened restaurants in other areas around Florida, as of 2010 only one in Miami remains, and another in Las Vegas. Other recent endeavors include serving as a consultant on the film Any Given Sunday and serving as a spokesperson for the NutriSystem weight loss program.

Dan Marino has also established his own foundation, the Dan Marino Foundation, to further research and funding for autism. His son was diagnosed with the condition in the mid 1990’s, and Marino and his wife have been active spokespersons for autism spectrum disorders, in an attempt to raise further awareness about the condition. The Dan Marino Center, located in the Miami Children’s Hospital, is an active neurodevelopment center which specializes in helping children and families affected by the disease.