Linebacker Mariano Sori-Marin brings fascinating Cuban ancestry, and passion, to Gophers football
Minnesota linebacker Mariano Sori-Marin talks to reporters during an NCAA college football news conference at the Big Ten Conference media days, Tuesday, July 26, 2022, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
By
ANDY GREDER |
[email protected] | Pioneer Press
PUBLISHED: October 14, 2022 at 6:59 a.m. | UPDATED: October 14, 2022 at 8:29 a.m.
Mariano Sori-Marin just can’t wait.
When Gophers football home games end on Saturday afternoons, the middle linebacker will head out to a restaurant with parents Katrina and Mariano and older sister Analiese. The couple have made the seven-hour drive from the family’s home in the southern Chicago suburb of Mokena, Ill., and along the way, picked up their daughter in Madison, Wis.
These dinners are the precious moments the family of four get to spend together each week, but their cerebral son/brother can’t stop thinking about it. He has to know.
Sori-Marin must watch a few clips of the game that just transpired at Huntington Bank Stadium. So, on the drive to the restaurant and before the appetizers come out to their table, the fifth-year senior is quickly scanning through plays on his phone. He’s not as interested in the highlights as the lowlights, which will gnaw at him.
“Put the phone down,” his sister has scolded.
“Just give me five minutes, Analiese.”
The phone is soon locked and stowed. “He pays a lot of attention and we have nice meals,” Katrina added.
That’s the level of love and dedication Sori-Marin brings to the Gophers program. He will express himself again at 11 am. Saturday in front of an estimated 40 family members and friends who will make the shorter trip to Champaign, Ill., for Minnesota’s game against No. 24 Illinois at Memorial Stadium.
Joe Rossi values Sori-Marin’s input so much that the defensive coordinator/linebacker coach will ask him — and a few other trusted defensive veterans — for input on preferences within that week’s game plan. After Sori-Marin gets a head start on game film before Saturday night dinners, he will take diligent notes in the film room during the week.
“He prepares probably as well as anyone I’ve ever coached in my career,” Rossi said. “That gives him an edge .. and it gives us an edge defensively. He does a lot of work for us with calling things out, getting us in and out of checks, alerting guys of certain things. The work that he puts in from a preparation standpoint is second to none.”
The Gophers are No. 1 in the nation in total defense through five games (allowing 220 yards per game), and Sori-Marin is their leading tackler with 32, including a team-best three for lost yardage.
Kirk Ciarrocca says Sori-Marin’s passion doesn’t depend on the day. “Whether it’s spring practice number nine, training camp practice number 17 or game four on the schedule,” the Gophers offensive coordinator said, “he just loves to play the game and loves to compete.”
TEARS OVER DA BEARS
It’s pretty much expected, given where he grew up, that Sori-Marin’s favorite NFL team is the Chicago Bears, and given his position on the field, it’s fitting his favorite player was their hall of fame linebacker Brian Urlacher.
In the family room with dad, little Mariano would put on his plastic blue helmet and sit on the floor in front of the TV to watch Bears games. When they would lose, he would cry. When they would win, he would wear Urlacher’s No. 54 jersey for days on end.
For a class project in the eighth grade, Sori-Marin wrote a report on George Halas, the Bears’ legendary founder, owner and head coach.
When Sori-Marin was around five years old, the Bears were playing the Packers in December, but the family had plans to go to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the exact same time. No one in the family wanted to break the news to him that he couldn’t watch the game. Yet when they did, he cried. The waterworks subsided until they drove past Soldier Field on the way to the concert. More tears flowed.
But during breaks in the symphony’s performance, Santa Claus would come out and give score updates. That helped, somewhat.
“There still might be a little PTSD,” Mariano said with a smile this week.
FIRST WITH FILM
Sori-Marin had no time for peewee flag football and jumped at the chance to play tackle at age eight. By 12, his youth coach, Matt Hunniford, had Sori-Marin and his teammates watching film together.
“I just always thought watching film was the normal part of the game,” Sori-Marin said. “Just because I was introduced to it at such a young age that you never really knew anything else.”
Being an early adopter helped Sori-Marin once he got to high school, but only Ivy League schools showed interest until the Gophers offered the 27th-rated player in the state of Illinois a scholarship for the 2018 class.
In Dinkytown, Sori-Marin’s film study took off under Rossi and former linebacker Thomas Barber. “I always give credit to them,” he said.
At 6-foot-3 and 245 pounds, Sori-Marin has old-school size for a linebacker, but that also means he’s not the quickest going sideline to sideline nor in pass coverage. Being able to diagnose plays and having a deeper understanding of other opponents’ tips and tendencies shown on film gives him the ability to stay a step ahead.
THE PAST
The Sori-Marin family played a role in pivotal Cuban history.
Mariano’s grandfather, Mariano I, and his great-uncle, Humberto, supported the Cuban Revolution, which overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista in the late 1950s.
Humberto, an attorney and an economist, became minister of agriculture, essentially a cabinet member within new president Fidel Castro’s administration, Mariano Sori-Marin II told the Pioneer Press in an interview.
Humberto worked on agrarian reform laws with famous rebel Che Guevara, and Humberto believed the goal was to redistribute land to the people, but he resigned when that initiative went in a communist direction, Sori-Marin II said.
Humberto fled for Miami on a small boat, joined the CIA-led counter revolution and played a role in the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
“He actually was one of the frontmen,” Sori-Marin II shared. “He came back to the island secretively. I think it was about a week before the actual (invasion). He knew everything that was going to happen. … He got captured (and) it was just a big disaster.”
After a short tribunal, Humberto was executed by firing squad.
“I’m proud to talk about his history and everything he did,” Mariano II said. “He did the right thing. He could have taken the easy path and just stayed with the government. The people that sort of toed the line, they lived very well. He could have just stayed at his position.
“But he said, ‘No, this is not what we fought for.’ And so he was a man of principle.”
When Humberto was killed, his brother Mariano I stepped down from his role as a doctor in Cuba’s health department. Mariano I and wife gave birth to Mariano II in 1963 and a daughter in 1965, and made plans to leave Cuba in 1967. Everyone in the family but Mariano I received visas; he had to defect.
Instead of settling in Miami like so many Cubans, they opted for Lexington, Ky. Mariano II said it seemed like a normal childhood. “One thing that’s great about this country, is they’re so welcoming of people that just want to come here, be free and make a living and a life for themselves,” he said.
Mariano II and Katrina, who is of mostly German and English descent, met at Indiana University. He is a tax consultant; she works in marketing. Analiese is now a biopharmaceutical researcher at PPD Laboratories. Mariano III has a finance degree from the Carlson School of Management.
Minnesota linebacker Mariano Sori-Marin, second from right, poses for a photo with his family after a 24-17 win over Nebraska in a college football game at Lincoln, Neb., on Dec. 12, 2020. From left, mother Katrina, sister Analiese and father Mariano. (Courtesy of Katrina Sori-Marin)
Mariano III shares the same pride in his Cuban roots as his dad. “The biggest thing is it just gives you a sense of perspective of what we get to do here in the United States,” he said last week. “We’re not worrying about things like that, where we don’t have to have a Bay of Pigs invasion, we get to come out here and play football each and every day.”
THE FUTURE
While Sori-Marin is obsessed with the game, he has other passions, including food. As a “foodie,” he has a list of his 100 favorite eating spots across the Twin Cities. Cuban food is favorite. So, when he’s done watching clips postgame at family meals, he can get into the restaurant’s menu, ingredients, flavors and scene.
During preseason camp in August, Sori-Marin hosted a social-media series called “Meals with Mariano.” He was poised, articulate and easy going as he talked food with teammates in front of the camera.
Katrina said her son could be the next Guy Fieri. Fleck said if that’s his career path, it would possibly be more of a “Beat Bobby Flay” kind of role because Sori-Marin would need the competitive aspect. Big Ten Network employees have said after interviews about football that he could have a future in TV.
But his parents strongly believe when his playing days are done, he will stay in the game. Fleck and Sori-Marin have talked a lot about him coaching and the demands of the profession. Sori-Marin doesn’t deny coaching seems like a favorite, but says his future might be in an NFL front office or as an agent.
Sori-Marin then wondered about what an August might be like if he wasn’t involved in training camp. “It just wouldn’t feel right,” he said. “You know, ‘I should be doing football right now.’ That’s what the world requires me to do.”
Andy Greder | Gophers football and Minnesota United beat writer
Andy Greder covers the Gophers and Minnesota United for the Pioneer Press. Since joining the paper full time in November 2013, he has also covered the Timberwolves as a beat and spot duty from the Vikings to high schools. He was a part-time breaking news reporter at the Pioneer Press from 2011-13, when he was also a freelance writer and organic farmer. He started at the Duluth News Tribune in 2006, covering sports, news and business until living abroad in 2010.
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