E:60 profiles former Michigan State offensive lineman Tony Mandarich, who was drafted in the first round of the 1989 NFL Draft by Green Bay Packers as the second overall pick. That year, the massive 6’6”, 330 lb. football player posed shirtless for the cover of Sports Illustrated with the headline: “The Incredible Bulk.” His career never lived up to expectations; he was released after four seasons with the team.
Thirty years later, E:60 host and reporter Jeremy Schaap interviews the 52-year-old Mandarich at his Scottsdale home. When it was suggested that “it seemed like you tried your hardest to be unlikeable,” Mandarich replies with a laugh, “it was coming naturally.”
On a serious note, Mandarich relates his professional football career as “a train wreck, just building up speed.” He admits that “steroids will be attached to my name for the rest of my life.” Three years after the 1989 NFL Draft, a balding Mandarich was featured again on the cover of Sports Illustrated but with the headline “The NFL’s Incredible BUST.”
Mandarich wrote about his life and career in his 2009 autobiography My Dirty Little Secrets – Steroids, Alcohol & God, which was ghostwritten by his mother-in-law, Sharon Shaw Elrod. The cover of the book lists the writing credits like this: By Tony Mandarich, as told to by Sharon Shaw Elrod. It wasn’t Elrod’s first book. In 2005 she wrote a book about her relationship with her one and only daughter (Mandarich’s wife) whom Elrod surrendered for adoption in 1966, and who returned to find Sharon in 2002. The book is titled Shar’s Story, a Mother and Daughter Reunited. E: 60 airs Tuesdays at 8 pm on ESPN.
E:60 1989 NFL DRAFT TONY MANDARICH from ESPNFrontRow on Vimeo.
