Golden: Explosive Netflix documentary explores Manziel's off-the-field underworld
A personal note before we get to this week’s nuggets: Thanks so much for your emails and DMs regarding the column I wrote on my late mother. The condolences and sharing of stories from your own experiences with your moms has been a real comfort for me and my family.
Your kind thoughts are appreciated more than you know.
Now let’s talk about a Texas A&M legend.
Johnny Manziel displayed his typical candor in his new "Untold: Johnny Manziel" documentary on Netflix. Illuminating at times, but missing some current perspective regarding how he’s paying his bills in Scottsdale, Ariz., the doc gives us 70 minutes, most of which was devoted to a magical college ride that turned into an NFL train wreck in startling fashion.
The most electric football player in Texas A&M history gave us an unvarnished view from behind the party curtain that was his magical two years in College Station and the ultimate flop with the Cleveland Browns. It also revealed how college football could use a modern day anti-hero like Johnny Football to spice things up.
Manziel was box office, and not just in College Station. He made the Aggies a real player when the school left the Big 12 for the rough-and-tumble SEC. That 20-6 record over two seasons included a defining 29-24 road win at Alabama his freshman season that was easily the biggest in program history and a signature performance that changed this life.
Just one decade ago, Manziel was A&M’s Vince Young, making the impossible seem possible on Saturday afternoons while he and longtime friend "Uncle" Nate Fitch were pocketing boatloads of cash from autograph sessions after Manziel won the Heisman Trophy in 2013.
The sessions clearly went against the century-old NCAA rules governing amateur athletics at the time.
“It was business,” Fitch said during the show.
Indeed it was, not only for Manziel, but for the university that received nearly $1 billion in donations, nearly half of which went to the renovation and expansion of Kyle Field. Millions more came in from the sales of Manziel jerseys and related items and he made no secret of his disgust with not being able to share in the marketing phenomenon that came as a result of his on-field exploits.
Aggie Nation thrived during the Manziel era, but he was forced to come up with other means to take advantage of those fertile opportunities.
Add the fact that his playmaking was directly responsible for then head coach Kevin Sumlin signing a massive contract extension and offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury getting the coaching job at Texas Tech. Neither set the world on fire after the Manziel years, but have pocketed millions in the last 10 years, money that would have been much harder to come across had they not crossed paths with Johnny Football.
Little did we know that we were so close to what has now been described as the Wild West of college athletics where schools have been placed in bidding wars for the best players. If you think Quinn Ewers is having a good time at the bank with his NIL deals, imagine how much bank Johnny or VY would have pocketed back in the day?
For those who were there, the NFL disaster wasn’t a shock with the revelations of weekend drug benders, shady schemes to avoid the drug testers — one involved his father faking a heart attack — flights to exotic locales that were explained away by an overexaggeration of his family’s wealth and a 2016 suicide attempt. Those are several of many wow moments of this must-see doc.
What most stood out was the fact that Manziel, a self-described frat boy, never bought into the belief that he would lift the long-suffering Cleveland Browns from the ashes, especially after he lost his zest for the game and delved deeper into drug use.
“I tell people all the time that it wouldn’t matter where I was at, what team, wherever I was at that time of my life, I was incapable of being an NFL quarterback,” he said.
Now 29 and apparently living in the desert, it isn’t clear if Manziel has any sort of life plan moving forward, but here’s hoping that he’s healthy and in a better mental space than he was not so long ago.
Bohls: Jerritt Elliott's Texas volleyball program rises above all the rest
His was a wild ride and let’s all be thankful that he’s still around to talk about it today.
RIP, Pac-12
The death of a conference: Who knew that while I was away taking care of some personal business that the Pac-12 would sink in Titanic fashion, difference being we knew that luxury liner was going down well before Celine Dion started singing.
A college football season without the Pac-12 seems impossible, but it’s where we are. The biggest football schools have bailed and who knew the Big 12, which nearly didn’t survive that last big realignment episode over a decade ago, would be picking at the carcass and landing schools like Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado.
The recent events only lend credence to the possibly of the 64 biggest football programs eventually parting ways with the spineless, check-cashing NCAA and forming their own coalition with ESPN and Fox.
This thing stopped being about amateur athletics long ago. The billions surpassed the textbooks long ago.
Time to hang 'em up
Spence should retire: It’s great to see undisputed welterweight champion Terence "Bud" Crawford get the accolades after his domination of Dallas’ Errol Spence in Vegas, but Spence should do himself a favor and pull out of the rematch.
Spence is a walking miracle after being thrown from his Ferrari while driving in excess of 100 miles per hour in a Metroplex crash in 2019. The fact he even returned to the ring is nothing short of incredible.
But Crawford is all bad for him. Styles make fights and Spence doesn’t have the tools in his bag to give Bud major problems in a rematch. A second fight would be a worse result than a ninth-round stoppage.
Stay away, Errol. Stay far, far away.
More: Texas tight end Ja'Tavion Sanders is 'ready to show the world what I'm really capable of'
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas A&M football legend Manziel subject of new Netflix documentary
