When Honolulu Bulls youth soccer coach Rick Chong tossed a No. 8 jersey to a skinny 7-year old 20 years ago, he had no idea what he had just set in motion.
Back then the jersey signified the joy that Marcus Mariota felt in making the prominent soccer team. But, since then, the number has come to mean a whole lot more in his remarkable athletic journey.
Enough that Mariota wanted and wore the number at Saint Louis School, at the University of Oregon and at both of his stops in the NFL.
Enough also that Mariota’s agents made it a request before the Tennessee Titans drafted him in 2015 and he was willing to arm wrestle a teammate for it, if need be.
More recently, he’d proposed an expenses-paid, post-pandemic trip to Hawaii in exchange for a teammate, Las Vegas Raiders kicker Daniel Carson, giving him the number in a trade.
“I’ve been talking to Daniel, who wore No. 8 last year and we’re working something out, maybe the trip to Hawaii when things are OK,” Mariota said after his signing with the Raiders. This week the Raiders’ roster listed Mariota with the “8” and Carson was the “2” jersey.
Mariota said, “I’ve liked the number forever. It is something that started when my coach tossed me a jersey that had ‘8’ on it when I was just starting in soccer and it kinda stuck ever since.”
Chong said, “Back then it was probably because it was the one that fit him. He was barely 7 at the time. But he outgrew the other kids very quickly.”
The “8” has also come to refer to the 808 area code, one of Mariota’s ways of representing Hawaii. At Oregon he had a custom-designed face mask shaped to resemble “808” something he eventually carried over at Tennessee after the NFL took a year to approve it. The number is also prominent in the title of his Motiv8 Foundation charity work.
When the Titans got serious about taking Mariota, the 2014 Heisman Trophy winner, with the second overall pick of the 2015 NFL Draft, agents told the club he had a special request: He’d like to get the No. 8 jersey and would be willing to work a deal with the owner at the time, place-kicker Ryan Succop, to acquire it.
When Mariota’s name was called on draft day his agent had a freshly minted Titans jersey ready for Mariota at the Saint Louis Alumni Clubhouse.
But the next morning Succop’s Instagram posting showed the kicker flexing his arm and offering a challenge. “Alright Mariota #8 is all yours … free of charge … IF you can beat me in (an) arm wrestling competition.” The post was tagged, “#betternotlosetoAkicker.”
Mariota said he would accept the challenge but Succop said the whole thing was a gag and, after meeting the quarterback, just gave him the number. “I found him to be a great guy and worthy of the number,” Succop said later.
Chong said he followed Mariota’s seasons at Saint Louis and Oregon but it wasn’t until later while assisting with the Motiv8 Foundation that it dawned on him how the number had been threaded throughout the quarterback’s career.
“I know how proud he is of being from Hawaii and it is really cool how it has all worked out,” Chong said. “I’m dumbfounded.”
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
