An Open Letter to Dan Marino

Dan Marino, the most productive quarterback in National Football League history, was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, on Sunday, August 7. The following is a letter I wrote to the football legend prior to the induction ceremony on August 2, 2005.

"[T]he sight of an achievement [is] the greatest gift a human being could offer to others." -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Dear Dan Marino,

Congratulations on your induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I thought this momentous occasion was the best time to tell you that you are among a select few who have had a particularly positive influence on me. These few include my mother, who sparked in me a love for knowledge, Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance man whose life embodied an impassioned pursuit to know one's world, and philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand, who discovered the knowledge necessary to live by for success and happiness. So where do you, a star athlete, fit into my constellation of stellar role models?

Unlike most professions, professional sports put a spotlight on their participants for all to see, and athletics (particularly football, my favorite sport) illustrate in condensed, intensely exciting fashion the virtues and values necessary for success in any field. Further, sports one of few fields left in our society in which achievement, excellence and even perfection are widely pursued and wildly celebrated. Sports fans can routinely observe all these qualities displayed in concrete action and be inspire to apply them to their own lives and work.

So I dismiss the detractors who deride sport as "just a game" that" contributes nothing to society." Instead, I liken the careers of some athletes to works of art, such as novels or movies that project what men should be and can be. At a certain level, an elite athlete stands as a real-life fictional hero, like a Roy Hobbes from The Natural. This is what your Hall of Fame career has stood for me. By faithfully following your play with the Miami Dolphins (my favorite team), I was offered the sight of a man who projected, game in and game out for 17 years, a host of exemplary virtues and values.

Your top value was to win every game and, ultimately, championship. That this singleness of purpose was n ever subordinated to any other goal was made clear by your disappointed demeanor after you had tied or broke NFL career quarterback records in games the Dolphins nevertheless lost. Your brash confidence was an outgrowth of your ability to throw a football with unprecedented laser speed and pinpoint accuracy. This competence fueled your unshakeable belief that at any point in a game you could put your team on your shoulders and single-handedly command a victory. Some of the most memorable games in which these qualities shinned were your defeat of the undefeated Bears in 1985, your five touchdown passes against the Patriots on your return in 1994 from a season-ending Achilles injury, and the come-from-behind victory on your fake-spike play against the Jets later that year.

And it was the hope you gave to your fans -- the hope that even with mere seconds left on the clock you could still stage a comeback (something you did a near record number of times) -- that was the most inspirational part of your career. Even in games the Dolphins were almost certain to lose, you still continued to play your heart out. You knew no other way to play. And you would undoubtedly have won many such games if your teammates had suddenly exhibited just half of your exemplary confidence, competence and will to win.

That is why it is myopic and unjust that some people highlight that you never won a Super Bowl. In actuality, it was primarily the Dolphins teams around you that never won. When the greatest pure passer, the most productive quarterback, and one of the fiercest competitors in NFL history lead your teams, the fault for never having achieved a championship must lie elsewhere.

Add to all the above your study of the game, particularly of the opposing defenses that you famously picked apart, and the thought with which you approached your craft was unquestionable. Your intelligence -- along with your considerable mental and physical toughness that allowed you to play in an outstanding 145consecutive games and for 17 seasons -- are the keys to why you are the quarterback with the second most victories ever.

Considering all that you had to endure around you, it's no wonder you became a fiery leader. Your leadership was captured best by that trademark piercing stare you darted at your teammates who failed to give their all as you always did. That stare said everything about your approach to football: take your work intensely seriously and expect the same in others. And I learned from an interview with your son, Dan Jr., on "Inside the NFL," that your leadership on the field carried over into your everyday life. He stressed that instead of telling him what the right things to do were, you mainly taught by example. And Dan Jr., an aspiring actor, said something that reveals you taught him a crucial lesson. "I don't play a lot of sports," he said. "But my father doesn't really care about that. What he cares about is that you work really hard at what you love to do. And I really learned that from him."

This reminds me of a scene from Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead, when Howard Roark, a heroic, innovative architect, sits on a boulder overlooking a valley dotted with summer resort homes created by him. A boy on a bike comes across this view and is awed by Roark's achievement. The scene ends with this inspiring passage: "Roark looked after [the boy who headed down a path toward the houses below]. He had never seen that boy before and he would never see him again. He did not know that he had given someone the courage to face a lifetime."

I wrote this letter because I wanted you to know that by offering the sight of an outstanding athletic career, you have played an important part in giving me the inspiration to pursue a lifetime of values. A poor student in school who in early adulthood had one foot on a road to self-destruction, I was able to turn my life around to where I have both feet firmly planted on a path to self-fulfillment. Today, I'm pursuing my passion, a writing career, with the seriousness, singleness of purpose and love of work that, in part, your career illustrated is desirable and possible and that can bring success and happiness to one's life. In closing, Dan Marino, I simply want to say to you what the boy on the bike told Roark before he headed toward his valley of homes: "Thank you."

Joseph Kellard

Joseph Kellard is a journalist living in New York. To read more of Mr. Kellard's commentary, visit his website The American Individualist at americanindividualist.blogspot.com.