It was written that someday Marcus Mariota would be a quarterback of some renown and be NFL-bound.

Of course that was 12 years ago, when Mariota had yet to throw a touchdown in organized football, had the barest notions of the Heisman Trophy he would someday win and was writing a fourth-grade essay on what he wanted to be when he grew up.

Through 9-year-old eyes, he saw his future perfectly clear — he would become an NFL quarterback — even if no one around him imagined it.

"We wondered where he got that idea, but that’s what he wanted to be and he was very sure of himself," said Margie Tupper, his fourth-grade teacher at Nuuanu Elementary.

She counseled Mariota that "there were only a finite number of NFL quarterbacks," and that he might want to look into something else.

"I asked him, ‘Marcus, don’t you want to be something else? Can’t you be more practical?’ "

The image of the youngster resolutely maintaining that he could become a pro quarterback remains in her mind, Tupper said. "I remember him pleading with me, ‘Mrs. Tupper, that’s all I want to do.’ Somehow he knew. He just did."

At the time, recalls his mother, Alana, "it was not a big deal, more when you look back and kind of go ‘wow!’ at how it all turned out"

What made it more curious was that he had yet to play organized football. To that time, she recalls, "he played soccer. I remember him telling me one day he was looking forward to playing (Pop Warner) football, that his parents were going to let him play that spring."

But watching him throw a football around at recess and after school, she recalls an undeniable grace to his motions. "He could throw spirals," Tupper said.

One day, she recalls, Mariota shared his dreams with an after-school coordinator. When the coordinator asked him playfully if he came to a game and cheered for Marcus in the NFL … whether his voice would be heard from the stands, Mariota thought for a moment. "Then he said, ‘Yes. When you call out our names when it is time to go home, you have a loud voice, so I’ll be able to hear you,’" Tupper said.

When it came time for the annual parent-teacher conference, Tupper said she shared Mariota’s vision of his future with his parents. "They said they didn’t know where he got the idea, either."

Tupper said she told them, "You know, I tried, I tried to get him to think of other things, but that’s what he wants to do."

Watching Mariota’s rise to starting quarterback his senior year at Saint Louis School, his fame in leading the University of Oregon into the inaugural College Football Playoff and winning the Heisman Trophy this month, "I rooted for him," Tupper said. "But I felt kinda of silly having been the one who tried to talk him out of it at first. My son jokes with me about it, calling me ‘the dream killer.’"

Mariota stood out for more than his dreams, Tupper said. "He was a very nice boy, very inclusive even at that time with the kids around him, like he is with his teammates now."

When her son, Manu, who was Mariota’s classmate in fourth grade, went off to Kamehameha Schools, he would sometimes ask her about him and request that she ‘tell him I asked about him,’" Tupper said. "He was like an old soul in a young person’s body."

Looking back, Tupper said, "it is like, ‘my gosh!’ he had these dreams so young and told me about them … and he’s making them happen."

HIS PARENTS WERE HIS ROCK

Well before Marcus Mariota stood on a stage with the Heisman Trophy in New York to publicly thank his parents, others recognized their place in his ascent to the top award in college sports.

"When you meet his family you understand a little about what makes Marcus who he is," said Oregon coach Mark Helfrich.

Mariota, who is of Samoan and German ancestry, "and his younger brother (Matt) reflect the values of their parents," said Saint Louis School offensive coordinator Ron Lee. "Getting to where he (Marcus) is was a real tribute to Marcus’ hard work, of course, but also to his whole family."

His father, Toa, is a supervisor working for the Department of Homeland Security, and his mother, Alana Deppe Mariota, is sales consultant for Follett School Solutions.

In his Heisman Trophy acceptance speech and interviews surrounding the presentation, Marcus thanked his parents "for their sacrifices for my brother and I.

They made it possible for us to attend Saint Louis and go to (mainland) football camps, even if it meant taking on extra jobs."

People who have known their parents say they see some them in their sons. "It seems like only yesterday that Toa was earning ‘A’ grades in my criminal justice courses," said Mel Masuda, who was, at the time, an associate professor of law and criminal justice at Chaminade.