Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

Linebacker Marcus Marek was one of my favorite college players growing up, playing for Ohio State. In 1983 Marek went to the USFL Boston Breakers, and played for them in all of their three years of existence, even when the team moved to New Orleans and Portland. He never played again for any team in any legue or was selected in the 1983 NFL Draft. Anyone knows why?

Just did a quick search on Newspapers.com and came up with this.

Hi signed with the Chicago Bears for their 1985 preseason and played in one preseason game against the Cowboys and was then cut after that game. Calgary Stampeders then tried to sign him but he turned them down.

Signed with Cleveland Browns in May 1986 but was cut in Aug 86. Then signed with the Toronto Argonauts but didn't play in a game (I think he was injured). Resigned with Toronto in April 1987 but seems to have suffered hamstring injury and was released in June 1987.

Signed with New Orleans as a replacement player in 1987 but again suffered a hamstring injury and never played. That was the last i could find of him.

Just found this also in 1988

"Marcus Marek a former All-America linebacker at Ohio State, filed a $1.5m suit against agents who represented him during his USFL career. The suit says Edward J.Keating Management Agency Inc. led him to sign with the Boston Breakers, who foldered, instead of the NFL Cincinnati Bengals, who offered "a significant signing bonus"".

Couldn't find anything to show what the outcome of the suit was though...

Also in Nov 1988 it was reported he was an assistant football coach at Harvard.

I know he had a ton of tackles with the Breakers. As I recall over 200 in each season.

240 and 227 in '83 and '84, respectively.

Thank you all!

Marek and Ben Needham were pretty awesome on that Breakers defense. I think a lot of those Big10 LBs who were tackling machines ended up being just a tad too small/too slow for the NFL. I remember Larry Station at Iowa(too small), Percy Snow at MSU and Erick Anderson at Michigan (too slow). Andy Katzenmoyer was one of the best college LBs I had ever seen, but he strangely seemed to get worse near the end of his college career and never did much in the NFL.

Marek was not a big guy, which isn't necessarily a detriment considering Sam Mills was even smaller. I'm guessing his speed (or lack thereof) also was a flaw that teams couldn't overlook. Jim Mora did have him on the Saints 87 scab team.