The Sad Case of Mariet Ford, Who Made Final Lateral in THE PLAY

40th anniversary of that 1982 five-lateral kickoff return reminds us of the imprisoned member of the play and the uncertainty regarding his guilt

Mariet Ford resides in Vacaville, California, much closer to Cal's Memorial Stadium than any of the other three participants in the 1982 five-lateral kickoff return known as The Play.

However, he can't be present for any of this weekend's celebration of the 40th anniversary of The Play that will be part of Saturday's Cal-Stanford game in Berkeley.

Ford is at California State Prison-Solano serving a sentence of 45 years to life after being convicted of the 1997 murders of his pregnant wife, 3-year-old son and unborn child. He was also convicted of arson for setting the bodies on fire. 

"Sometimes, I wake up and think, 'I'm in prison. This is my life,' " Ford told the San Francisco Chronicle from prison in 2002. "That's a very humbling reality."

Ford was 41 years old then. He was 35 at the time of the crime. He's 61 now. Numerous appeals have been denied.

---Cal player Kevin Moen and Stanford trombonist Gary Tyrrell are are forever bound together by The Play.---

But the story does not end there.  Ford, the Cal player who made the final lateral in the The Play, continues to deny his involvement in the crime, and long-time Sports Illustrated writer S.L. Price investigated the situation and turned up questions.

Here is an excerpt from Price's 2019 podcast on the issue:

It was the stuff of legend. The kind of moment you could never predict in a million years. Which makes it all the more surprising that Ford now sits in a prison cell. Sixteen years after The Play, Ford was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife and 3-year-old son, then setting their bodies on fire. Then and now, Ford has maintained his innocence.

“None of it makes sense. None of it has been fully explained … The prosecution unearthed no murder weapon, no physical or DNA evidence linking Ford to the crime, no history of spousal or child abuse, no motive or eyewitnesses,” S.L. Price wrote when he reported out this story for SI 20 years ago. Except it never ran. Now, Price returns to the story to try and make sense of it all.

Why would Ford murder his family? If he did it, why arrange it so that his brother, Orrin, who was also his best friend, was the one to find the bodies? And what was it about this case that seemed to haunt so many people and derail so many lives?

The the January 2020 teaser to the True Crime podcast of "Lateral Damage" was again intriguing.  You can listen to it by clicking here, but here is a brief excerpt from Price's description of the upcoming podcast, in which he says he spoke to Ford in prison three times.

Ford insisted he was innocent, as he does to this day. It was a purely circumstantial case argued by the prosecution, Mark Curry. There was no history of violence. There was no clear motive. There was no murder weapon and no eye-witnesses. He insisted that he was innocent, but he, in the end, was convicted of triple murder.

I'd go back and forth within the same five to 10 minutes, saying he was absolutely guilty because there were certain holes in his story and his accounting of what happened that day. Then I would flip backwards and say, but there's no history of this, and there are people who stand by him to this day . . . who just don't think he is capable of this and there's no history of it, and how does a guy like that with no history of that, not even violence on the football field. I mean he was an incredibly intrepid and self-sacrificing player. He was a wide receiver and kick returner, punt returner who would constantly go across the middle, so I would go back and fourth, and that's how I wrote the story.

Finally there is this lengthy 2021 video and audio from True Crime Sports, which looks into the Mariet Ford case and the questions surrounding it.

Adding to the story is the report that the Innocence Project took up the case about 20 years ago, although nothing has surfaced from that. And then there is the ambiguous and relatively new California law that might grant parole after 25 years to some inmates serving a life sentence. But that law has many requirements.

Kevin Moen, the Cal player who took the final lateral from Ford and scored on the play, notes in the video atop this story he has never heard any of Ford's circle of friends say they think he is guilty.

"I knew him as just a super, low-key great teammate," Moen said. "All of the things you would want in a teammate he possessed. To see what transpired down the road was just sad."

Ford will be less than 40 miles away when Cal hosts Stanford for the 125th time, which will also be the 40th anniversary of The Play, in which he was vital part.  He also made an outstanding diving touchdown catch in that game. I wonder what he's thinking.

---The story of The Play and the aftermath, as told by everyone involved in that classic 1982 play.---

Here is The Play, with Mariet Ford (No. 1) making the final blind lateral to Kevin Moen, just before Ford is tackled by several Stanford players.

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