SOUNDING OFF:

Years ago, while quarterbacking for the Raiders, Todd Marinovich must have marveled at his immense fortune for playing football with a group of athletes whose lives were already patented with a hero stamp.

I’m sure he felt like a deity, as did the rest of his teammates. But it didn’t last long. Fame was too quick, too large and too devastating for a young man who wasn’t prepared to handle the oddities of the celebrity world.

Marinovich reminds me of Williamson, the protagonist in John Grisham’s nonfiction book “The Innocent Man.”

Marinovich and Williamson were glorified early in their lives. Williamson’s friends and coaches thought of him as the natural successor of Mickey Mantle, the great Yankee slugger.

Likewise Marinovich had an outstanding record playing football at Mater Dei High School and later at San Juan Capistrano, where he received a major national award for his sensational arm.

Soon he was one of the most talked-about quarterbacks in the nation; everybody wanted to be his friend. Sports Illustrated once published a glowing article announcing him as an individual “bred to be a superstar,” or a quarterback furnished from birth to win the Heisman Trophy or to follow in the footsteps of the great Johnny Unitas.

Many prominent college football programs wanted him. In the end he settled for USC, in hopes of finding pretty girls, cool friends and especially a springboard for a promising career in the NFL.

I guess he got them all, including a free ride to the underworld. Williamson and Marinovich didn’t measure up well with their success, and they got in trouble. Rape allegations, drugs, alcohol, legal troubles and family disputes, among other things, soon hampered the two men.

Williamson’s life has served Grisham not to document his home runs on the baseball field or his recovery from alcohol and drugs, but rather to point out a major flaw in our legal system. Williamson and another friend, Dennis Fritz, were sentenced to death and life in prison, respectively, for an atrocious killing they never committed.

Marinovich’s life isn’t yet over. There is always time for redemption. Robert Downey Jr. sniffed white powder like no one in Hollywood, but got his stuff together and continued his stellar career.

Closer to home in Costa Mesa, Roy Alvarado, a one-time drug addict, alcohol abuser, gangster and convicted drug dealer, rejuvenated his life and founded Save Our Youth, a violence-prevention center for children and young adults. He got deeply involved in other local organizations and programs. Alvarado has been an inspiration to many kids in our community. Marinovich can still be a better person off the football field as well.

HUMBERTO CASPA is a Costa Mesa resident and contributing columnist for La Opinion and more than 20 newspapers across the nation.