Edward Marinaro, Chi ‘72 (Cornell) – A Life in the Spotlight
Ed. Note: After this article was published, Ed graciously agreed to sit for a Fireside chat with Psi U. You can watch the full interview here; He talked about Psi U quite a bit! (If you just want to see those highlights, you can see them here.)
By Jerilyn Ericson, Gamma Tau ‘23 (Georgia Tech)
On the first day of his first career, there was a car. Brother Edward “Ed” Marinaro, Chi ‘72 (Cornell), had bought it with the $25,000 signing bonus he got from the Minnesota Vikings, and his teammates did not hold back from poking fun at him for pulling into the first day of practice in a beautiful purple Porsche.¹
One day, he noticed the car was missing and called the police. The officers that arrived quickly found the car, in Ed’s own words, “…under the goal post on the practice field. [Teammates] stole my car and put it under the goal post.”1 As it turned out, he had forgotten his keys in the ignition–the perfect lure for a bunch of Vikings looking for a laugh.
Before his run in the NFL, the New York City native got into Cornell University, where he joined the Chi chapter of Psi Upsilon and launched an illustrious career in college football. He started gaining attention early on, with a sophomore-year season that saw him gain the second-most yards in the country, at 1,409 yards, and run the highest per-game average in the country, at 156.6 yards.²
When asked in 1970 whether Cornell would put him on the field as much as in his previous season, offensive coach Carmen Picone quipped, “He’ll be carrying the ball plenty. You don’t use a cap pistol when you’ve got a cannon.”5
And a cannon he would prove to be, shooting high enough to claim the Maxwell Award and the second place spot for the Heisman Trophy for his 1971 season.³ For such a run–all 4,715 rushing yards of it–he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1991.4 All this coming from an Ivy League athlete long after those universities put much less emphasis on football–a seriously impressive feat.
Soon after graduating, he was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings. Despite the car prank, he got along well with his team. Some may say that Ed’s career was disappointing after college, but the man himself doesn’t look back on those days in such a light. In his own words, “I loved being in Minnesota. I played with some great teammates and some great coaches….”¹
And any career that includes two stints in the Super Bowl and places in three NFL teams can hardly be called disappointing.
On the first day of his second career, there was another car. As it turned out, his purple corvette had been stolen for real sometime in 1973. It was found two years later in Colorado, but by then, he had already bought a gold Porsche with the insurance settlement money, and that was the car he drove to Hollywood in 1978 when he took the leap into acting.¹
ED HIMSELF WRITES:
“ After my purple Porsche was stolen I got a gold one which I had for 13 years and it was stolen from my driveway in LA. That’s when I bought a Corvette in 1985. Kept it for 12 years. Loved that car.
Ed’s first big break in Hollywood was a spot on Laverne and Shirley. It was slow going at first, but he eventually landed another big spot as Officer Joe Coffey on the Emmy-award-winning show Hill Street Blues. Anyone who watched it at the time is sure to recognize him from the over 100 episodes he appeared in.6 His character was actually supposed to die in his fourth episode, but thankfully Joe Coffey fit well enough with the other characters that the writers evidently decided to keep him.7
In 1987, he participated in a series of ads for Miller Brewing Company, which was noticed at the time for a reason you, too, have probably noticed. From the 1987 issue of the Diamond, “Surely Brother Marinaro feels a bit of guilt in plugging the competitor of Coors, which is headed up by Jeffrey H. Coors, Chi ‘67, and Peter H. Coors, Chi ‘69.”8 You may have also noticed the further layer of humor here, which is that Ed and both of the Coors brothers hail from the same chapter, and though I cannot confirm it, I’m reasonably sure they would have been undergraduate brothers at the same time.
Brother Ed would go on to feature in many other movies and TV shows, including Sisters, Dynasty, Amy Fisher: My Story, and Blue Mountain State.6 The last, a raunchy comedy show, saw him return to football in his role as Coach Marty Daniels. If that sounds much different from his previous shows, the man himself would agree with you. “It got me a whole new audience,” he said in a 2022 interview. “It’s crazy. I mean, I became so popular with this demographic of 18-to-32-year-old men.”¹
And in a strange turn of events, at least from the eyes of those fans, he is more well known as the football coach in Blue Mountain State than as a college football star, though it doesn’t much bother him.¹
BROTHER ED ON HIS ROLE IN BLUE MOUNTAIN STATE:
“It’s crazy. I mean, I became so popular with this demographic of 18-to-32-year-old men.”
In total, he is credited for 66 acting appearances.6 This, along with his college football career, three NFL teams, and two Super Bowl appearances make for as much an impressive life and it is a varied one. This isn’t even mentioning his charity work, which includes hosting the Boca Grande Classic fishing tournament, which raised money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.9
Despite being in his seventies and no longer needing the money, Ed still does acting work because, in his own words, “… it’s just nice to stay sharp,…. It’s sort of fun. It gets your blood going.”¹ So do not be surprised if you go to see a new movie one day or turn on a new streaming show and find Brother Ed somewhere on the screen, catching the attention of yet another demographic.
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