Tony Mandarich

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Tony Mandarich
Date of birth	September 23, 1966
Place of birth	Oakville, Ontario
Position(s)	Offensive Tackle
College	Michigan State
NFL Draft	1989 / Round 1/ Pick 2
Statistics	DatabaseFootball
Team(s)
1989-1991 1996-1998	Green Bay Packers Indianapolis Colts

Ante "Tony" Josip Mandarich (born September 23, 1966 in Oakville, Ontario) is a former football offensive lineman of the NFL. He is most remembered as the first round draft pick of the Green Bay Packers in 1989, second overall behind quarterback Troy Aikman.

A decade before the epic failure of Ryan Leaf, Mandarich was largely considered to be the biggest bust of any draft pick in American football history; an ESPN panel named him the third biggest sports flop of the last 25 years. [1] The Packers drafted him early in the draft, even while future superstars like Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas and Deion Sanders were still available.

Tony had an older brother, John, who was instrumental in his development as an athlete, including sponsoring his younger brother's transfer to a stateside high school before Tony's senior year. John was a gregarious, sweet-natured giant who made his own reputation in professional football, in the Canadian Football League, before his tragically early death from cancer in 1993.

Playing at Michigan State University, Mandarich played in the 1988 Rose Bowl, was named as a first-team All-American, an Outland Award finalist and a two-time Big Ten Lineman of the Year. Upon his entry into the 1989 NFL Draft, both scouts and media (most notably Sports Illustrated, which did a cover story on him) began trumpeting Mandarich as the best offensive line prospect ever. Mandarich was also a colorful character, such as challenging then-Heavyweight Boxing Champion Mike Tyson to a fight, his well-documented love of the band Guns N Roses (he had a dog named Axl and also a tattoo of the cross-design from the cover of Appetite For Destruction on his arm), and referring to Green Bay as "a village".

Drafted as an offensive linesman, Mandarich never lived up to the very high expectations set for him, and spent most of his first year on the Packers on special teams after a lengthy holdout that only got settled the last week before the regular season. He was also known for having attitude issues, and after three seasons of lackluster performance on a four-year contract, Mandarich was cut by the Packers.

The question of steroid use has been discussed as a possible factor in Mandarich's spectacular failure. This accusation is one that Mandarich has consistently denied. He instead blamed himself, in a 2003 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article: "I wanted to create as much hype as I could for many different reasons — exposure, negotiation leverage, you name it. And it all worked, except the performance wasn't there when it was time to play football."

Mandarich returned to football for three years between 1996 and 1998 with the Indianapolis Colts. He had a more successful, if not particularly noteworthy, career with the Colts before retiring from football in 1998.

From September 2004 until September 2005, Mandarich served as an NFL analyst for The Score TV sports network in Canada. He was fired in October 2005 and currently resides both in Arizona and in Ontario, where he co-owns a golf course.

He now runs a photography studio.[2]