I was given the privilege of interviewing Mio Rodriguez, a magician and mentalist of very high caliber in the Miami area, for the relatively new MiamiMan Magazine. You can view the magazine on MiamiMan’s website here, or have a look at the PDF of the article here.

The Magic of Mio

Magic By Mio is a close-up magic and mentalism act that is mind-boggling enough to spread the word…even among some of the biggest stars in the world.

Mio Rodriguez is surprisingly polite while he makes your head explode.

Throughout our discussion, he repeatedly called this simple scribe “sir”, and thanked me for the interview in a truly sincere tone. He even threw in a brief performance free of charge.

Mio is unfailingly gracious and genuine…which, when you think about it, is an odd quality for someone whose career is about deception.

It’s a key component of not just his considerable lifelong success, but also being repeatedly invited to entertain some of the most well-known humans on Planet Earth.

Just for the record though, he’s really, really good at magic and mentalism too.

During the interview, he divined a digit I had mentally chosen from an eight-digit number on my phone’s calculator, and followed up by intuiting what I had just searched for on Wikipedia, guiding me with skilled patter.

It’s all tricks of course, but I was duly impressed…and couldn’t wait to play the recording for my children.

I’m not the only one.

Mio performs astounding card magic and confounding mind-reading tricks, both at an exceptionally high level. His goal is always to bring out the wonder we had as kids.

“I’ll do close-up magic, cards and coins in the cocktail hour, followed by a mentalism show after dinner. People come to me and say, ‘You know, the magic with cards was amazing. We didn’t see any sleight of hand, we just figured that’s how you did it.

“’But the mentalism…were you really reading our minds?’

“Mentalism is the new magic for adults,” Mio says. “They think they know how the card trick was done, but when it comes to mentalism, there’s still that childlike wonder…‘How the heck did he know what we’re thinking?’

Baffling Dan Marino can help land a mentalist some prime gigs.
(photo courtesy of Mio Rodriguez)

Mio’s Magic and Mentalism Show is well known today…not just in Miami, but in the highly exclusive celebrity world.

The list of names Mio has dazzled includes not just Miami’s own Dan Marino, Shaquille O’Neal, Wayne Huizenga, and Don Shula. You can view many more on his website…Stallone, DeNiro, Jordan, Gretzky, and countless others.

It started with Marino, though. Or more correctly Mrs. Marino.

“His wife saw me at someone’s party,” Mio remembers about a fateful moment, “and she has me at a birthday party for Dan at the Signature Grand.

“He liked what I did, and he said, ‘I want you to come to my celebrity golf tournament.’”

At that tournament, Mio says, “I met Mario Lemieux, he said, ‘Wow, I love your stuff. Can you do my celebrity golf tournament in Pittsburgh?’ One of his guests was Michael Jordan.”

And so on.

Mio has plenty of amusing stories about entertaining celebrities. He remembers a Christmas gathering with Pat Riley’s Heat:

“Riley had seen me at a party, and he wants me to come to the Heat’s Christmas party. He liked it so much he hired me for 12 parties in a row.

“For the last four years I did the party, LeBron was there. The first three years, other players would bring me over: ‘LeBron, you gotta see this!’ He would be like, I don’t like magic, I don’t wanna watch. The fourth year, finally he goes, okay, let’s see what you got.

“I do my favorite effect, a signed card to a wallet. When I bring his signed card out of the sealed envelope, he was like, ‘oh my God, that’s too much.’

“I go, let’s do one more. I have an invisible deck in my hand. I throw it to him and say, take a card out invisibly, turn it upside down, and throw it back. He throws the invisible deck, when I catch it, there’s a deck in my hand. I go, ‘I caught a pass from LeBron James! Sir, what card did you put in upside down?’

“At this point, Pat Riley’s come over. LeBron says the king of spades. I spread open the deck and there’s a card upside down. When I turn it over, it’s the king of spades.

“And Pat Riley goes, ‘You got the King with the King!’”

It takes years to develop this level of cool.
(photo courtesy of Mio Rodriguez)

It’s a fallacy that anyone is born to do anything, especially in entertainment. It discounts the deliberate intention to excel at a craft, and the persistence to convince others that your skills are worth a look.

Mio’s had life experiences pointing him to a career in magic, including coming from a show business family and performing in front of Mrs. Dan Marino. But he’s worked at it plenty, and he’s made his own breaks.

“My father was a professional costume designer and my mother was a dancer. In fact they met doing a show together. My father’s great love was magic, and although he wasn’t a professional, he was a very good magician. He would sit me on his lap and teach me magic with cards. When we would go to magic shows, he would tell me how things were being done.

“I just thought everybody’s dad knew, I didn’t know I was getting privileged information! I knew a few great card tricks, fun at a party or whatever, but I never thought of it as a career.”

But then one of those fateful nudges happened.

“A magician just happened to move in next door, who made a living at close-up magic. I’m like, ‘Wow, you can make a living?’

“He showed me an effect, and it turned out to be one my dad had taught me. I grabbed the deck and showed him my version, and he showed me his other version. Because I had some knowledge, he started sharing with me like I was a magician. He said, if you learn these seven basic moves of sleight of hand, you could be a magician.

“I studied and practiced, hours and hours a day for months and months. After about a year, I decided I was gonna try to make the transition and be a magician. I moved from Dallas to Florida in 1990.

“My friend was doing magic in restaurants; restaurant jobs are the basic fundamental stepping stone, the bottom rung of the ladder. I would come in Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and go from table to table for a small salary and tips.

“Once I got those first jobs, I built off of those, then I started calling entertainment agents. I said, listen, I work at this restaurant, come in and have dinner, watch what I do and see if you like me. If you do, you can hire me for your private and corporate parties.”

A performer never knows when momentum is going to kick in. But years of hard work and making connections finally turned into “overnight success”.

“I gave my cards out for the first four or five years. Then one day I got a phone call: ‘I had your card for three years, we have a party.’ Then the next day I got a call, and then the next thing I knew I’m getting calls three, four, five times a week. All of a sudden business just exploded.”

“I’ve been working full-time for 32 years now. We’ve had a really great year here this year. People are coming back out of Covid, and it’s been some record numbers.”

Not bad for someone who started with a few card tricks at parties.

Entertainment that is welcome anywhere.
(photo courtesy of Mio Rodriguez)

As much as he enjoys the travel and performance life, Mio is planted in South Florida. It is, he says, a great place for a magician to call home.

“There’s a lot of corporations, conferences, and also parties, bar mitzvahs, all kinds of events. People come here and want to do something fun. Florida has a lot of people that have the ability and desire to have these parties, and they want great entertainment.

“I love Florida, the sporting activities, the fishing and the water activities. Even though it’s hot in the summer, the weather is overall fantastic. You’re not locked in. There’s so many opportunities here. It’s just a fun place to live.”

It’s an admirable lifestyle Mio’s carved out in the Magic City. He does quite well performing at corporate events, celebrity parties, and on cruise ships. His well-honed act sends him across the country…including Las Vegas, where magicians can be easily hired without travel expenses.

His lovely assistant…his wife Rhonda…performs a much more important function for Magic By Mio, Inc. than getting sawed in half. She handles Mio’s promotion, marketing, contracts, and the rest of the business end, so Mio can focus on staying on top of his game.

“It’s helped bring our business up,” Mio gratefully acknowledges. “She sends out all these email blasts and marketing that remind people of us, and they call us back, it just makes everything much more professional to have her.

“One job leads to another, because word of mouth is my strongest method of promotion. I don’t advertise. With the website there’s SEO, that’s the only thing I pay for.

“Things are newer, but back in the day, it was all word of mouth. And it still is.”

Those who have witnessed The Magic of Mio would agree. Just ask Pat Riley.

Magic that draws a crowd at your event.
(photo courtesy of Mio Rodriguez)

If You’re Interested…

MiamiMan probably doesn’t need to point out that if Mio is good enough to work the Heat’s Christmas party for over a decade, that his skills are exceptional enough to perform at a corporate event.

But he’s very easy to get a hold of, in case you’re interested…there is a contact form on his website, and his direct cell phone number is prominently displayed online as well.

You should probably contact him well ahead of time, though. Mio estimates that he performs about 145 shows a year, and many of those gigs put him on flights. The list of cities where he performs include Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, and many others, and his list of corporate clients includes IBM, Citibank, AT&T, UPS, Walgreen’s and many, many more.

You get it; Mio is in high demand…for his skills obviously, but also for his professionalism.

“For corporate, you want a really top rate entertainer who’s sophisticated. There’s a lot of CEOs, high level people, they’re spending a lot of money, and they don’t want anything hokey. They want to make sure they have a sophisticated entertainer who’s on a higher level, because they’re often wanting to impress other people.

“That’s what they get from me, and that’s one of the reasons I’m busy with so many corporate events, because once they find that out, the word also travels as well.

“I’m able to take care of their clients a professional, sophisticated, classy way, and that’s what they look for.”

Deal or no deal?
(photo courtesy of Mio Rodriguez)

As (Almost) Seen On TV

Mio Rodriguez just missed…twice…on capturing nationwide audiences on a level where he could add a “notoriety fee” to his performance price. He auditioned for both America’s Got Talent and Penn & Teller’s Fool Us shows, and just missed making it to the show both times…for reasons that had nothing to do with any lack of ability or skill.

“On America’s Got Talent, they called me up and wanted me to come on the show. I was doing mentalism in the audition, and they told me, ‘You don’t even have to wait in line. We want you to come audition for us.’

“We rehearsed in the morning, and I had two or three mentalism effects that were ready to go, but the producer or the director at the time had never heard of mentalism, and he kept skipping me. They just didn’t really understand what mentalism was. Now, of course they do, they’ve had mentalists get to the finals.

“What they actually ended up doing was choosing another magician who wasn’t very good. He was triple-X’ed off. I guess they needed, I don’t know, some humor on the show. It really upset me to the point where I didn’t try to get back on it.

His exclusion from Penn & Teller’s Fool Us is even more inexplicable.

“Penn & Teller, before they had their show, they were at one of those conventions in Vegas, and they saw me do some moves with the cards. They said, man, that’s the best we’ve ever seen. We want to film you, because we’re doing a documentary about the convention.

“They never did do that show, but in the meantime, I auditioned for Fool Us. They said, here’s the date of filming, make sure your calendar is open.

“But in the end, they never called me back.”

It’s unfortunate that America hasn’t had a chance to see Mio’s act on television. Mio has had audience members tell him that he’s as good as David Blaine. And more personable.

“Wait, what?”

Women in Magic (Yes, They Exist!)

Have you ever given any thought to why you have seen so few female magicians? In fact, you may not have even given it thought…in terms of magic performance, you might simply be accustomed to women in sexy clothing, climbing into a box to get sawed in half.

There is a post on Mio’s website about this phenomenon and how magic is one of the rare fields that has not yet been fully infiltrated by the fairer sex. In it, he references the iconic “We’ve got a witch!” scene from Monty Python & The Holy Grail. As humorous as the scene is, Mio says, “its implications are quite horrifying.”

“Throughout history, up until the 18th century in fact, accusing women of practicing witchcraft and heretical sorcery was often a near-instant death sentence.”

In modern times, Mio notes that “many parents and relatives make assumptions about the interests children will take up based on gender. Men are encouraged to pursue fields like sports and sciences based on gifts like athletic equipment, chemistry sets and magic sets. Women, less so.”

But Mio says this is changing, and points out an inspiring success story in particular.

“I have a good friend who is a magician, and he gave his niece a magic book when she was 13. She loved it, she started learning magic, and she declared at a young age, I’m gonna have a show in Vegas when I grow up, I’m gonna be a woman magician who has a show in Vegas. Lo and behold, she just celebrated her 500th show last week.

“Her name is Jen Kramer, and she’s one of the few women magicians right now that have a big show in Las Vegas. She basically created that for herself, she manifested that by saying, yes, I’m gonna be a magician, I’m gonna have my own room in Las Vegas.”

“That’s the kind of orientation, goal setting and tenacity that it takes for a woman, let alone a man, to do that.”

You can learn more about Jen Kramer at her website.

For the debut issue of MiamiMan Magazine in April of 2022, the editors let me cover Super Bowl MVP Larry Csonka, the legendary fullback and key piece of the back-to-back Super Bowl Champion Dolphins. Zonk was very nice to me and had some great stories to share. You can see the PDF of the magazine article here, or see the article on MiamiMan’s website.

Even his eyebrows looked tough.
(photo courtesy of the Miami Dolphins)

Zonk

He was a legendary fullback and one of the most important players on a Miami Dolphins team that stood on top of the football world two years in a row. To this day, the Perfect 1972 team still stands alone.

To this day, Miami is the only NFL city whose team has gone a full season with a zero in the loss or tie columns.

Somewhere, probably in the clouds today, is an Akron area juvenile court judge and junior high principal we should thank for pointing a tough young kid in the right direction…back onto the football field, and on track to carry the ball for that perfect squad.

“I watched my older brother play,” Larry Csonka remembers. “and I went to a high school football game on a Friday night. There was probably three or four thousand people there, which was an immense crowd, I’d never seen anything like that growing up, a country kid on a farm. To play under the lights, I thought that was big time!

“I was sent down to the bench by my father, he sent a dollar down to my brother because he made a great catch. I got to go down by the bench and hand him the dollar, and I just marveled at the sidelines, I was just in awe of the whole thing. I couldn’t wait to get old enough to play.”

That is, until he was actually getting hit. “I went out for football in seventh grade, didn’t know anything about it, got knocked down a lot, and quit.”

Shortly after quitting, the kid from Stow, Ohio got into a bit of trouble, and was put before a forward-thinking judge who possibly saw his potential as a superstar fullback.

“The juvenile court judge told me that I needed to report to my principal every day.  He would be responsible for me. Mr. Saltis made me write reports on football”, Csonka says with a laugh. “I started to understand the game and got back into it, otherwise I might not have ever played again.”

Every superstar player in sports history probably has a story of when their path to stardom came close to being derailed. Larry Csonka knows full well how important all of the ingredients are not just to an individual’s success, but to a team’s success.

We’ll come back to that.

The Dolphins were always happy to give Zonk the ball.
(photo courtesy of the Miami Dolphins)

In case you’re too young to remember Larry Csonka, or you need a refresher on what your parents told you, here’s a bit about why he was adored by the football loving faithful here.

In just eight seasons as a Dolphin, he rushed for 6,737 yards and 53 touchdowns…both still team records to this day. He averaged over five yards a carry in 1971 and 1972, and in 1979, as a power running back at the age of 32, he rushed for 837 yards and 12 touchdowns.

He also was, obviously, a key player on the unbeatable 1972 team, gaining 1,117 yards and averaging 5.2 yards a carry. The following season he was a Super Bowl MVP, rushing for 145 yards and two touchdowns against the Vikings. Read that again…Zonk ran for 145 yards against a defense good enough to be in the Super Bowl.

A player known for his legendary toughness, and sometimes carrying several defenders with him into the end zone, is quick to credit another man for his drive on the field…another legend in Miami, otherwise known as the winningest coach in football history.

“The competitiveness of it grew on me a little later, and then meeting a guy named Don Shula in the pros rejuvenated that feeling I had when I was a boy. After going through junior high, high school, college and being on some winning teams, I was motivated by that, but I still hadn’t become possessed by it. When you play for Shula, you either become possessed or you play for another team.

Csonka tells a story about Shula’s motivational skills that isn’t surprising.

“I got hit one time and was laying on the sidelines, and he ran up to me and said, ‘You can’t be hurt!’ It made me so mad I forgot I was hurt, I jumped up to grab him, and he took off!” Csonka remembers with a laugh. “He said, ‘I knew if I made you mad enough you’d forget you were hurt!’”

“He had a real chip on his shoulder about being unprepared, he wanted to anticipate everything that could be anticipated. In other words, total concentration, total commitment to the win.

“Now, that sounds easy, and all of us want to do it, and that sounds fine to go to a Boy Scout meeting and stand out and get your honorary badge, that’s great. But when you do it 17 or 18 times in a row, it’s hard to keep that up. And he would mandate that, he would demand that, and he would raise hell if he thought you were screwing around in practice and not paying attention.

“Two and a half hours, a couple of times a day – that’s five hours a day, and you’re talking about six weeks of intense concentration in training camp. It’s pretty hard to keep that up, on that plane, but with him behind you, we were motivated to stay on that plane.”

Beat him in the Super Bowl? OK, now he’s mad.
(photo courtesy of the Miami Dolphins)

Zonk remembers that Don Shula pushed for absolutely every edge on a football field…including having a team train in the July Miami heat to prepare for hot days. After an embarrassing Super Bowl loss to the Cowboys, the coach made the team use the loss as motivation.

It worked out literally perfectly.

“Getting that far in ’71, and then getting your ass handed to you in the Super Bowl was embarrassing. But Shula said to us after that game, ‘I want you to remember this moment, because we’re gonna use this as a basis to make even more sacrifices next year.’

“He didn’t say what our objective was going to be. What he said was, we’re gonna treat every game like it’s the Super Bowl. That way we can’t ever relax. By the time we get to the Super Bowl, we’ll be able to make sure that we do it one more time.

“Those words rang true, that was a great prediction after a terrible loss.”

Indeed, as the football world remembers, the Miami Dolphins made winning quite the habit in 1972. The backfield of that team contributed to the obsession…the interchangeable squad of Csonka, Jim Kiick, and Mercury Morris made opposing defensive coordinators want to put 15 players on the field. It was an idea Shula had once he believed Morris could take the punishment.

“Coach Shula decided to talk with the offensive line coach to see if we had the offensive linemen that could get to the outside. And we did. Larry Little, a huge big man, who was super fast in the 40, so we could get somebody out there to block for Merc, and we could have that outside threat.”

“It gave us a three-dimensional backfield, and that made a difference. That was one of the contributing factors to going undefeated.”

The Dolphins’ backfield was so strong that even losing a Hall of Fame quarterback in the fifth game didn’t stop the victory train. But Csonka is quick to point out that absolutely everyone on the team made contributions to a season still unmatched in NFL history…starting with Kiick and Morris.

“In order to do that,” Csonka reflects about the interchangeable backfield, “you have to have the talent to do that, but you also have to have the personalities to do that. Jim Kiick and Mercury Morris were two unique personalities, but the great common thing between them was the mutual respect of each other, one realized the other had talent that he didn’t, and they both recognized that fact, and were all right with that.

He continues: “If any one ingredient doesn’t mix with the other ingredients, then you’re gonna have that kind of animosity that’ll grow to be a cancer and it’ll keep you from attaining a perfect season. There’s a reason there’s only one team that’s ever done that.  We had the best blend of players and coaches.”

“When you look at it, you take any one player, if you take Bob Griese, starting quarterback, Earl Morrall, the substitute quarterback, all made contributions. Charlie Babb, special teams, rookie player, got in there, made a big play, blocked a punt. You take Charlie out of that game, we lose that game.

“As a rookie playing on special teams, only got on the field a few times, but he got on there just enough to make a difference in us going undefeated or losing one game.

“That’s how finite it gets.”

Profile of a Hall of Famer.
(photo courtesy of Audrey Bradshaw)

Zonk is, at least partially, so fondly remembered in South Florida for an unfortunate reason. He represents a successful era for a team that hasn’t won a playoff game in over two decades. Young Miami football fans aren’t even accustomed to frequent playoff runs these days, much less three straight Super Bowl appearances.

Read some of the blog posts on his website about the team in recent years, and it’s apparent that like the rest of the city, he becomes frustrated with the Dolphins’ shortcomings. He’s still supportive, but it’s clear that it’s no easier for him to watch sometimes than for the rest of us.

Csonka confesses to not being able to apply his understanding of the game in his playing days to the game of today. But he does think there’s one constant in winning football that the Dolphins need to embrace to get back on top again. When asked that question, he begins his answer with one word: unity.

“If you get a strong head coach that believes in a certain way to do it, and you can get a cast of players that believe in him, I don’t think that formula’s changed that much.

“Is it Don Shula reborn again? I don’t know, but I think it starts with that. I think it starts with a strong coaching staff and the dedication of the players, and finding 40 or 50 players that really, truly want to win, and they’ll make whatever sacrifices that are necessary in order to obtain that.”

That said, he does make occasional public appearance to talk about the glory days.

“We get a few fans, that might go back and remember, and some of the young folks that have heard things from their parents or grandparents, or perhaps even great grandparents,” he says with a laugh. “What I do is reminisce about the championships and how we got there, Coach Shula, the colorful, fun parts of the game that you still see on Sunday are fun to talk about. Sports humor is really what it’s about, it’s a good time, not any deep message or anything.”

The Perfect Season, justifiably, is still today a great source of gratification for the Hall of Fame fullback.

“More than personal pride, it’s fun to feel a team pride in being part of that. I’m sure there are other people that have made it to the top of Everest and stood there and felt that exhilaration of being on top of the mountain. But to be able to stand on top of the mountain, and know there’s an entire team standing there with you and you’re all part of that, is just another benefit.

“When the ’72 team gets together, those that are still standing and walking around, there’s a great camaraderie, and there’s a constant feeling when eyes meet, nothing has to be said.

“The fans that were there, again, that are still standing, when we see them, it’s a celebration that’s very unique. They can’t wait to tell us about it, we can’t wait to hear about it. It’s a celebration that goes on and it’s just as enthusiastic today as the day it happened.”

Zonk also has a sense of gratitude towards one other group of people: The Super Bowl XLII-winning New York Giants.

“I’m indebted to my teammate at Syracuse, Tom Coughlin, the head coach of the Giants, and Eli Manning. I am still their biggest fan!”

And an author as well.
(photo courtesy of Audrey Bradshaw)

Head On

MiamiMan loves success stories and views behind the scenes, especially when it comes to legendary sports achievements…and the Perfect Season certainly qualifies.

Larry Csonka’s coming book, Head On, shares tales behind his and the Dolphins success in that era. It includes flashbacks of his nearly quitting football, his occasionally rocky relationship with Don Shula, and his palling around with the likes of Burt Reynolds, Lee Majors, Elvis Presley and others during and after the Dolphins’ high-flying run.

But Csonka also shares some wild stories beyond the bright lights of the football field…such as his confronting thieves with a sawed-off shotgun, being adrift in gale force winds in the Bering Sea, and taking sniper fire in the midst of a USO tour.

As Csonka was quoted in Life magazine back in 1972, “No matter what your style, you have to take a beating.” Indeed, from the sound of it, the book describes a life of an athlete who took the hits on and off the field, and keeps moving forward.

Head On is slated for release on October 4, 2022. You can pre-order it on the Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites, and from the publisher, BenBella Books.

Larry and Audrey living the way Davy Crockett did.
(photo courtesy of Audrey Bradshaw)

The Last Frontier

Visit Larry Csonka’s website and you’ll see a selection of videos of him and Audrey Bradshaw, his lovely longtime partner, catching fish in the midst of beautiful Alaskan backgrounds.

Many of the videos are from his surprise hit show, “North To Alaska”, which enjoyed a successful run until its retirement in 2013. ”North To Alaska” was everything an outdoor life show should be…a former star athlete enjoying retirement by becoming just like one of the rest of us again. He and Audrey catch fish together, visit beautiful lodges in remote areas of a remote state, and share the greatness of outdoor life in the last frontier. It all makes for enjoyable, leisurely, and educational television.

What makes “North To Alaska” special enough to have enjoyed a 16-year run is that Zonk, a man who made a considerable mark on a football field, is there as a hunting and fishing enthusiast, not a former star athlete. It’s because he has just as much enthusiasm for Alaskan life as he did for football.

“Through my entire career, starting in high school or junior high, I aspired to get to Alaska by hook or crook. I got sidetracked into the NFL, and some ten years after the NFL, I finally got a chance. Starting with ESPN and our sponsors NAPA and STIHL, we put together an outdoor adventure, fishing, hunting series. Audrey and I moved north and bought a place in Anchorage and then Wasilla. We were residents of Alaska for some 20 years, and still go back for a month and a half each year.

“I think from the time I was probably 11 years old, I just wanted to go to Alaska because I figured that was the last place you could experience things like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett did.

“What a great way to do it, getting paid to do it. By the time the series ended, it was doing quite well. By the time it was in its 16th year, we had been a lot of places that most people don’t get to see in the state of Alaska.”

The popularity of a retired football star, even a Hall of Famer and Super Bowl MVP, isn’t enough to carry a low-quality show for a decade and a half. The appeal of “North To Alaska” may be that Zonk shows us all that it doesn’t take piles of money or fame to enjoy the good life. He’s the ultimate everyman with a genuine love for the outdoors, and it works.

A lot of nuns didn’t think it was funny at the time.

A Bird On The Cover

Larry Csonka made the cover of Sports Illustrated a few times in his career, but easily the best known cover shot features him and backfield teammate Jim Kiick…in a pose that featured Csonka giving a not-so-subtle middle finger. What makes the photo so priceless is the snickering look on Zonk’s face. You can easily find a copy of it on eBay if you’re interested.

Intentional? Not on Csonka’s part, at least as far as the photo actually making the cover. He’s not sure about the Sports Illustrated folks, though.

“We shot probably 200 photos that day of all the different kinds of poses. We had a couple of photos we just wanted for us to be funny, so we did that, and somehow that photo got in with the others and somehow inadvertently got put on the cover. I received very nasty letters from irate nuns for about five years after that!

“I sometimes wonder if that wasn’t done on purpose, but it wasn’t meant to be on the cover, it was meant for our own personal thing. So after that, I didn’t do that anymore. I certainly apologized, but at the same time, it was supposed to be private and it didn’t turn out that way.”

“But I’ll tell you what, a lot of people kept that issue!”

And a comeback player, too.
(photo courtesy of the Miami Dolphins)

Going Out On Top

Csonka broke away from the NFL to play in the ill-fated World Football League with the Memphis Southmen, and then played a couple of seasons with the Giants before returning to play with the Dolphins in 1979. He was hired by the Dolphins to be a blocking back for Delvin Williams, but when Delvin performed below expectations, they gave Zonk the ball…and he carried it for 837 yards and 12 touchdowns, a performance that won Zonk the Comeback Player of The Year award.

“I came back to be a blocking back for Miami. I became the guy running the ball. I think on one occasion, I carried it 40 times in a game, and at 32 years old, whatever I was at the time, I don’t recall, I didn’t need to be carrying the ball 40 times a game.

“That’s very much a young man’s game, a power running game, and you have to have great offensive linemen, which I had in ’72 and ’73.

The end of Larry Csonka’s NFL career came shortly afterward, with Don Shula making the decision for him.

“I made the decision to hold out, unless I got paid a whole lot of money to run the ball, I was still pretty healthy. But instead, I held out and Shula got mad and fired me.”

He has no regrets. “I wasn’t mad that he fired me. I was at a point in my career where I was glad he said I was through. That gave me all the pushing I needed.

“At 33 years old, it’s time to retire, particularly for a power running back.”