The star that burned too bright. Untold: Johnny Football(2023).
A documentary about the monumental rise and fall of a sybarite Football star. In this, I discuss the trials and tribulations of a college megastar Quarterback who singlehandedly rocketed the GDP of an entire city.
Having family ties in Texas, one of my first cognizant memories of the sport of Football itself, was the revelations of Johhny Manziel. I adamantly remember questioning if he was an actual person or a fictional character due to the aplomb at which he was spoken during his stint as quarterback for Texas A&M University. Netflix's original documentary film, Untold: Johnny Football finally put together the pieces of the puzzle of one of the most trivial sports stories in modern history.
From Military school to Johnny Football
“Johnny Football” was the alias and counter personality that Johnny Manziel destructively fell into. Johnny Football was the poster child of one of the most lavish college football tenures of all time. In stark contrast to his college days, Manziel went to a “military-style” football program. The aforementioned Tivy High is where Manziel first gained notoriety and his reputation for electric plays. Manziel stated he garnered inspiration for his “backyard” style of play from the legendary Brett Farve and Chase Young. Despite dominating his competition, his 5'11" stature and unusual style of play failed to bring to fruition to his dream of being a Longhorn at the University of Texas at Austin. He winded up choosing Texas A&M University.
Money Manziel
The opening scene of the documentary shows Johnny Manziel being inducted into the Texas A&M Football Hall of Fame in 2022. He addresses the crowd:
“Let me paint a paint a little picture of how I'm able to sit here today and be on this stage at 29 years old. When i stepped on campus in 2011 it didn't look like this.”
Many don't understand just what it financially means financially, to a city and those inhabiting it when you were as big as Johhny “Money Manziel” was in the early 2010s.
College Station Texas was a city struggling economically prior to the Manziel era. College Station's 2011 Annual Financial Report(Fiscal year ended 2010.) revealed the city to be in a state of slowed economic recovery.
“During the past two fiscal years, it was necessary to reduce the budget due to revenues not coming in as anticipated.”
Texas A&M University was still a heavy hitter for the college town- being responsible for $1 Billion annually to the economy. Yet even this wasn't enough to stabilize the economy. Flash forward to the 2013 report(amidst the Manziel-era.)and you see that his economic impact is so great, that he was listed on the report himself.
“Also, according to Forbes, the popularity of Johnny “Football” Manziel (quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner) has the potential of boosting TAMU’s recruiting pipeline and undergraduate applications for the next several years — and potentially “infringe upon the University of Texas and their historic stronghold within the state”. This would result in continued growth for our community in the years to come.”
Over the next couple of years, the reported student enrollment, property value, and tourism income saw unprecedented growth hitherto.
“The FY 2015 budget meets the needs of the citizens and visitors of College Station as the City continues to move through a period of strong growth. This manifests itself through continued growth in higher education, through a robust visitor and tourism economy,”
Thanks to “Money Manziel”, TAMU’s athletic department brought in the sixth-highest revenue of any University in the country in 2016. All while having the lowest expenses of any school in the top 10.
It wasn't just the university that profited off of Manziel, but those around him got paid as well; Head coach Kevin Sumlin received a boisterous $3.1 Million contract off of Manziel's heroics( $1.1 Million extra per season.). TAMU’s coaching staff received an additional $700,000 as well. Manziel's Heisman trophy was worth an estimated $37 Million in free publicity for TAMU, and the school raised an astounding $300 Million more in donations than any other year in the school’s history.
But due to the NCAA’s selfish regime- Manziel wasn't seeing a penny of it. NCAA bylaws stated at the time that players were not allowed to make money off of their image.
This was until he and his best friend-cum-business partner- Nate Fitch- devised a plan to profit off of Manziel's likeness.
After a surprise invite into the Autograph signing business from Alex Rodriguez that pocketed him $30,000, the two devised a plan where they would travel across the country selling autographs. This quickly spiraled into a lavish lifestyle for the two college kids. Everything from courtside NBA games to celebrity friends,(Drake, Rick Ross, and Lebron James to name a few.) even being on the field at the Superbowl.
Manziel was painted to be a monster by the media during this time but the documentary made his situation seem more ironically grounded if anything.
After a level backup plan to credit “Oil Money” as the source of his income, Manziel received the equivalent of a slap on the wrist punishment in a half-game suspension. While the $100,00 Manziel made was pennies on the dollar of what others were profiting off him, it still felt really refreshing to see two best friends beat a cruel system and live out a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a while.
The downfall
As the rest of the story goes Manziel's lackluster work ethic(logging 0.0 hours on the team iPad). caused him to get cut from the Browns following the 2015 season.
So what went wrong? Binge Drinking, never seriously taking the time to hone his professional abilities, or opting to watch 0.0 seconds of film might be the obvious answer. But I think Manziel himself described it best in the documentary by saying:
“Nobody Knew how to handle what was going on.”
Think about it. First, you give a boxed-in military school kid a fortune and unchecked power during a less invasive age of social media compared to today. Second, you bring in hundreds of millions in revenue and completely transcend a University/city. Now you have the recipe for disaster.
By the time Manziel got to the NFL he couldn't hide behind the wits of his college buddy any longer. He eventually had to cut ties with Fitch and it was revealed the two haven't spoken since.
Now, with his most loyal friends tossed aside, overall accountability- or lack thereof- comes into play. Being that Manziel was arrested for a barfight days before his first game in a Texas A&M uniform, the adults of the situation should recognized the storm that was brewing and stepped in. But unfortunately, when life-changing money hangs in the balance it makes it a lot harder to say no.
Manziel admittedly had become “bigger than College Station.”.
Too many yes men and an inability to balance a larger-than-life persona proved too much to handle.
Nobody seriously addressed the real elephant in the room- Manziel's mental health wasn't where it needed to be at the time. The quarterback was diagnosed as Bipolar and no substantial efforts were ever taken to subdue his “win or lose we booze.” mentality. Manziel went on three alcoholic benders before and during the NFL combine, which shot his draft stock in the foot. He went from a potential number-one overall pick to a late first-rounder(22nd overall by the Cleveland Browns.).
Any football fan knows that the Browns had long since been an abysmal franchise, yes. But the truth is, the damage had already been done. Manziel was a generational talent who never had to work for anything to succeed. He was naturally, just better than all his peers, he ran the second fastest 40-yard dash out of all Quarterbacks at the combine with a hangover(.01 seconds behind the fastest), and he felt as if he was above hard work.
Johnny Manziel is undoubtedly one of the biggest what-ifs in sports history, barring his mistakes he was poised to be the face of the Texans franchise(who held the number 1 pick of the draft.).
But still, Johnny Manziel’s story will go down as one of the wildest rides in college sports history.
