It's hard not to root for a successful Todd Marinovich turnaround.

The former USC and Los Angeles Raiders quarterback prodigy, whose football career and life has famously been derailed by substance abuse on multiple occasions, was in Indian Wells on Friday for a news conference to announce that he is returning to competitive football.

The former NFL and college star who just turned 48 on July 4, has joined the desert's developmental football team the SoCal Coyotes after serving as an assistant coach last season. He will be in uniform and in the huddle at Shadow Hills High School for the team's first practice Aug. 10. That's quite a change in scenery for Marinovich compared to where he was the previous August.

On Aug. 22, 2016 Marinovich was tackled by his addiction again. He was arrested in Irvine when he was found naked wandering around someone's backyard with marijuana and a paper bag with meth and syringes in it. He was cited for trespassing, possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of marijuana.

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The next month, he moved to the desert. He's been sober ever since.

"I can't really take credit for anything," he said to 30 or so assembled media, friends and family at Vue Grille and Bar in Indian Wells. "The only thing that I was given was the gift of desperation, which it takes to get started. And I am a work in progress. God works in ways that I never really saw until I moved to the desert. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I just knew I needed help and that I couldn't do it alone. And this area out here has a beautiful recovery community, which I jumped into."

Marinovich stepped to the mic, and with his first words being "I'm super-stoked," there was no mistaking that you can take the football player out of the beach, but you can't take the beach out of the football player. He sported a scruffy reddish beard and was dressed in orange Chuck Taylors, shorts and a T-shirt with an orange cartoon monster on it. To that he added a brand new SoCal Coyotes button up shirt and a Coyotes baseball cap.

He was comfortable in his surroundings in every way. He said being in front of the media used to be a nightmare, but since his recovery, he loves talking to people.

"The media, oh man, what a turning of the tables, because I could not stand this. I didn't like any part of it before," he said. "I didn't like microphones, I didn't like cameras. Now I can stand up here and talk all day because I have nothing to hide. Before I was hiding a ton. I didn't want you to find out or didn't want you to ask certain questions. Nothing is off the table now."

And true to his word, Marinovich was candid about the mistakes he made in the past. It's hard to picture the upbeat man that stood in front of us Friday, ever being down and out. In March, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail for the naked trespassing incident. He will avoid jail time if he has a successful rehab and stays out of any legal trouble for 36 months.

It was clear that there seems to be something different about this particular recovery attempt. He's been to rehab countless times he said, but he seems to have taken a spiritual and personal left turn toward something better this time around. The change is more emotional and lifestyle-focused than simply trying to attain literal sobriety.

"When i made several attempts at recovery, I said 'I'm going to go get treatment and then I'm going to go back to my life,' and that never worked," he said. "Now my recovery IS my life. I've meshed the two, so there's no separation and really what I've found to be driving the illness that I suffered from was separation. I was separated from the source (points up), I was separated from you, and I was separated from me. And that's no way to live."

The structure that comes with being part of the Coyotes football team can only help aid his recovery. He is drug tested at least once a week, and as part of the community-minded organization, he gets a chance to talk to kids and young athletes at schools and juvenile halls and youth organizations about not making the same mistakes he did. He calls that the most rewarding thing he's ever done.

Oh, and another reason for this return to competitive football? He really, really loves football.

"It's the greatest game on the planet and I've been away from it for so long, and I can't think of anything more fun," he said. "Recovery has changed every aspect of my life and made it better so why wouldn't that carry over to the football field?"

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Marinovich is also excited for his 8-year-old son Baron and six year old daughter Coski to see him play for the first time.

The Coyotes' coach, J. David Miller, said Marinovich's transition from quarterbacks coach to quarterback wasn't planned, but just kind of happened naturally. He said he's come a long way since he joined the team just weeks after his most recent arrest.

"We weren't necessarily kind to Todd at that point," Miller said. "Nobody said 'You're famous and we want to roll out the red carpet.' No we said you're going to have to do the work like every other Coyote. You're going to sign the code of conduct. If you're going to be a Coyote, you're going to go out in the community and you're going to walk the walk, not just talk the talk."

As Marinovich worked with quarterbacks and threw the ball around in practice, it became clear to Miller that Marinovich was starting to look like a former NFL player with the arm strength and the touch. The idea was hatched, but the big worry was not whether he would pass a drug test, but whether he could pass a physical. Could a 48-year-old take the beating of a football game?

The team doctors put him through the paces. He passed with flying colors. They flew Marinovich to Portland to meet up with legendary coach Mouse Davis, the inventor of the run-and-shoot offense which the Coyotes run. Marinovich was a natural at it. And that was it. He had passed every test, and the idea became a reality.

Marinovich is ready, and he is, to use his parlance, stoked. He will be vying for the quarterback spot against 25-year-old Jacob Russell, who threw 35 touchdowns and led the team to a perfect season last year. So playing time won't be a gimme, but Marinovich isn't really concerned with all that.

It's about continuing on this new positive path. I've heard addicts talk about how they are recovered before and use a lot of the same language as Marinovich, only to fall backwards into their addiction. But something seems different about his case. He's made me a believer.

"Talk about comebacks. we're not talking about football really," he said. "My best friends weren't betting on me, and that's not betting on me to come back to play football, that's on me coming back to be on the planet. So just being right here, right now is a win. I'm comfortable for the very first time in my own skin and man, what a gift."

Shad Powers is a columnist for The Desert Sun. He can be reached at 760-778-4627 or shad.powers@desertsun.com. Follow him on Twitter (@shad_powers), Instagram (@shad40) or on Facebook.

SoCal Coyotes

What: A developmental pro football team which began play in the desert in 2012, similar to a football version of the Palm Springs Power. They have a 73-13 record overall.

Where: The team practices and plays its home games at Shadow Hills High School.

Schedule: The first day of practice is Aug. 10. The first game of the season is Sept. 2, a home game at 1 p.m. They also have 1 p.m. home games on Sept. 16 and Oct. 14.

More info: Thesocalcoyotes.com or follow them on Facebook and Twitter @TheSoCalCoyotes