Mark Schlereth
Encyclopedia
Mark Frederick Schlereth (ˈʃlɛrɨθ; born January 25, 1966 in Anchorage
, Alaska
) is a former professional football
player and current television sportscaster. Schlereth played guard
in the NFL
for 12 seasons (1989
-2000
) with the Washington Redskins
and Denver Broncos
. He is currently a football analyst for ESPN
on NFL Live
, Sportscenter
, and other programs. He is a frequent guest and occasional fill-in host on ESPN Radio's
Mike and Mike in the Morning
. He has recently begun a career in acting, and appeared on the soap opera
Guiding Light
in June 2007.
, Alaska
, and struggled with dyslexia
as a youth — he did not learn to read until he was seven. He graduated from Robert Service High School
in 1984. Growing up in Alaska, Schlereth did not receive much attention as a college football
prospect; the only current FBS schools that offered him a scholarship
were Idaho
(I-AA at the time) and Hawaii
. He accepted the scholarship offer from the University of Idaho
from head coach Dennis Erickson
. Erickson departed following the 1985
season, and Schlereth started at left guard on the Vandals' offensive line for new head coach Keith Gilbertson
, blocking for quarterback
s Scott Linehan
and John Friesz
.
by the Washington Redskins
. He played twelve NFL seasons; six with Washington (1989–1994), and six with the Denver Broncos
(1995–2000). He was a member of three Super Bowl
championship teams (one with the Redskins and two with the Broncos) and was selected to the Pro Bowl for his performances in the 1991 and 1998 seasons.
Before ending his playing career, Schlereth endured 29 surgeries, 20 on his knees (15 left, 5 right). After the 13th procedure on his left knee on July 24, 2000, Denver Broncos
head coach Mike Shanahan
stated, "He has a great pain threshold. I think the doctors said that it was the worst knee that they've ever seen." Schlereth would have two more procedures on his left knee during the 2000 season, his last in the NFL. His injuries are documented on Athlete 360
, the new sports medicine television show hosted by Schlereth's former Redskins teammate, Dr. Mark Adickes
.
On April 18, 2001, Schlereth announced his retirement. "The reason I came out here today was to announce that I have just signed a six-year, $42 million contract to extend my career with the Denver Broncos. The truth of the matter is, after going through my 15th operation on my left knee last November, it became painfully obvious that I couldn't sign a six-year contract for $42 worth of Tupperware
. I started to realize in the last three months of free agency that there is not a lot of market for a 6'3", 245-pound guard that is 35 years old and beat to a pulp." He landed a job with ESPN
soon after.
. The show was frequently referred to as the "Stink and Doc" show. Schlereth was a part time analyst with ESPN for a time, commuting from Denver to Connecticut, before leaving 760 to go full time with ESPN in 2004. Besides regularly hosting NFL Live, Schlereth is a frequent guest and fill-in host for Mike Golic
on Mike and Mike in the Morning
, as well as an analyst on NFL Live
and Sportscenter
. He has also filled in for Jim Rome
on Jim Rome is Burning
.
Schlereth revealed on the Mike and Mike in the Morning show that he was considering a career in acting, mainly on soap operas, under the name Roc Hoover. Schlereth originally chose the name Rock Hoover, however after cybersquatters took several domain names pertaining to that name he dropped the k from Rock and became Roc Hoover. He announced on May 4, 2007, that he was cast as Detective Roc Hoover, a recurring role, on the soap opera, Guiding Light
.
Schlereth is also a featured athlete on Athlete 360
, a new sports medicine television show. Schlereth is still on the radio in Denver on 104.3FM the Fan. The show features former Broncos teammate Alfred Williams.
series Desire
.
Mark's son Daniel
was selected in the 2008 Major League Baseball's first year player draft
. A relief pitcher at the University of Arizona
, Daniel was drafted in the first round by the Arizona Diamondbacks
with the 26th overall selection and currently plays for the Detroit Tigers
.
Anchorage, Alaska
Anchorage is a unified home rule municipality in the southcentral part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the northernmost major city in the United States...
, Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
) is a former professional football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
player and current television sportscaster. Schlereth played guard
Guard (American football)
In American and Canadian football, a guard is a player that lines up between the center and the tackles on the offensive line of a football team....
in the NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
for 12 seasons (1989
1989 NFL season
The 1989 NFL season was the 70th regular season of the National Football League. Before the season, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle announced his retirement...
-2000
2000 NFL season
The 2000 NFL season was the 81st regular season of the National Football League. The season ended with Super Bowl XXXV when the Baltimore Ravens defeated the New York Giants.Week 1 of the season reverted to Labor Day weekend in 2000...
) with the Washington Redskins
Washington Redskins
The Washington Redskins are a professional American football team and members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team plays at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, while its headquarters and training facility are at Redskin Park in Ashburn,...
and Denver Broncos
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver, Colorado. They are currently members of the West Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
. He is currently a football analyst for ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
on NFL Live
NFL Live
NFL Live is a National Football League studio show, currently airing Monday through Friday at 4:00 p.m and 12:30 a.m ET on the ESPN cable network. Formerly known as NFL 2Night, the program is the only NFL-related studio program to air during the week...
, Sportscenter
SportsCenter
SportsCenter is a daily sports news television show, and the flagship program of American cable network ESPN since the network launched on September 7, 1979. Originally broadcast only daily, SportsCenter is now shown up to twelve times a day, replaying the day's scores and highlights from major...
, and other programs. He is a frequent guest and occasional fill-in host on ESPN Radio's
ESPN Radio
ESPN Radio is an American sports radio network. It was launched on January 1, 1992 under the original banner of "SportsRadio ESPN." ESPN Radio is located at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut...
Mike and Mike in the Morning
Mike and Mike in the Morning
Mike and Mike in the Morning is an American sports-talk radio show hosted by Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg on ESPN Radio and simulcast on television, normally on ESPN2. If ESPN is broadcasting a live sporting event during the show's timeslot, Sportscenter will air on ESPN2, and the show's...
. He has recently begun a career in acting, and appeared on the soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
Guiding Light
Guiding Light
Guiding Light is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running drama in television and radio history, running from 1937 until 2009...
in June 2007.
Early life and college
Mark Schlereth grew up in AnchorageAnchorage, Alaska
Anchorage is a unified home rule municipality in the southcentral part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the northernmost major city in the United States...
, Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, and struggled with dyslexia
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a very broad term defining a learning disability that impairs a person's fluency or comprehension accuracy in being able to read, and which can manifest itself as a difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, or rapid...
as a youth — he did not learn to read until he was seven. He graduated from Robert Service High School
Service High School
Robert Service High School is a public high school in Anchorage, Alaska. Serving grades 9 through 12, the school was named for the poet Robert W. Service. Part of the Anchorage School District, the school opened in 1971 as the last of four high schools built by the district within a decade...
in 1984. Growing up in Alaska, Schlereth did not receive much attention as a college football
College football
College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...
prospect; the only current FBS schools that offered him a scholarship
Athletic scholarship
An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport...
were Idaho
Idaho Vandals football
The Idaho Vandals are a college football team that represents the University of Idaho. The Vandals currently compete in the Western Athletic Conference of the Football Bowl Subdivision of NCAA Division I...
(I-AA at the time) and Hawaii
Hawaii Warriors football
The Hawaii Warriors football team represents the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in NCAA Division I FBS college football. The team, which is currently coached by Greg McMackin, is part of the Western Athletic Conference until 2012, when the team joins the Mountain West Conference.The Hawaii Warriors...
. He accepted the scholarship offer from the University of Idaho
University of Idaho
The University of Idaho is the State of Idaho's flagship and oldest public university, located in the rural city of Moscow in Latah County in the northern portion of the state...
from head coach Dennis Erickson
Dennis Erickson
Dennis Erickson is an American football coach and former player. He was the head football coach at Arizona State University until November 28, 2011, a position he had held since the 2007 season. In 2008 the Arizona Board of Regents had approved a contract extension to keep Erickson at Arizona...
. Erickson departed following the 1985
1985 Idaho Vandals football team
The 1985 Idaho Vandals football team represented the University of Idaho in the 1984 NCAA Division I-AA football season. The Vandals, led by fourth-year head coach Dennis Erickson, were members of the Big Sky Conference and played their home games at the Kibbie Dome, an indoor facility on campus in...
season, and Schlereth started at left guard on the Vandals' offensive line for new head coach Keith Gilbertson
Keith Gilbertson
Keith Gilbertson, Jr. is an American football coach and former player. He is currently a scout with the Cleveland Browns of the NFL...
, blocking for quarterback
Quarterback
Quarterback is a position in American and Canadian football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive team and line up directly behind the offensive line...
s Scott Linehan
Scott Linehan
Scott Thomas Linehan is an American football coach, currently the offensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions of the NFL. He was previously the head coach of the St...
and John Friesz
John Friesz
John Melvin "Deep" Friesz is a former professional American football quarterback in the National Football League for the San Diego Chargers, Washington Redskins, Seattle Seahawks, and the New England Patriots....
.
Professional career
Schlereth was selected in the tenth round (#263 overall) of the 1989 NFL Draft1989 NFL Draft
The 1989 NFL Draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 23–24 , 1989...
by the Washington Redskins
Washington Redskins
The Washington Redskins are a professional American football team and members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team plays at FedExField in Landover, Maryland, while its headquarters and training facility are at Redskin Park in Ashburn,...
. He played twelve NFL seasons; six with Washington (1989–1994), and six with the Denver Broncos
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver, Colorado. They are currently members of the West Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
(1995–2000). He was a member of three Super Bowl
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...
championship teams (one with the Redskins and two with the Broncos) and was selected to the Pro Bowl for his performances in the 1991 and 1998 seasons.
Before ending his playing career, Schlereth endured 29 surgeries, 20 on his knees (15 left, 5 right). After the 13th procedure on his left knee on July 24, 2000, Denver Broncos
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver, Colorado. They are currently members of the West Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
head coach Mike Shanahan
Mike Shanahan
Michael Edward "Mike" Shanahan is the 28th and current head coach of the Washington Redskins of the National Football League. Shanahan also holds the title of Vice President of Football Operations with the Redskins, giving him full control over player personnel with the team. Shanahan previously...
stated, "He has a great pain threshold. I think the doctors said that it was the worst knee that they've ever seen." Schlereth would have two more procedures on his left knee during the 2000 season, his last in the NFL. His injuries are documented on Athlete 360
Athlete 360
Athlete 360 is a television program that runs on Fox Sports Net channels across the United States. The only television show focused exclusively on sports medicine, Athlete 360 takes the form of long interviews with a different athlete each episode. The athletes, some working and some retired, have...
, the new sports medicine television show hosted by Schlereth's former Redskins teammate, Dr. Mark Adickes
Mark Adickes
Mark Stephen Adickes is currently an Orthopedic surgeon and a former American football offensive lineman in the National Football League for the Kansas City Chiefs and Washington Redskins. Adickes played college football at Baylor University and later attended George Mason University and Harvard...
.
On April 18, 2001, Schlereth announced his retirement. "The reason I came out here today was to announce that I have just signed a six-year, $42 million contract to extend my career with the Denver Broncos. The truth of the matter is, after going through my 15th operation on my left knee last November, it became painfully obvious that I couldn't sign a six-year contract for $42 worth of Tupperware
Tupperware
Tupperware is the name of a home products line that includes preparation, storage, containment, and serving products for the kitchen and home, which were first introduced to the public in 1946....
. I started to realize in the last three months of free agency that there is not a lot of market for a 6'3", 245-pound guard that is 35 years old and beat to a pulp." He landed a job with ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
soon after.
Television career
After retirement, Schlereth hosted an afternoon sports talk radio show on Denver AM radio 760 The Zone with fellow former Broncos lineman David "Doc" Diaz-InfanteDavid Diaz-Infante
Gustavo David Miguel Diaz-Infante is a former professional American football guard and center and current sports analyst. In the National Football League, he played for the San Diego Chargers, Denver Broncos, and the Philadelphia Eagles...
. The show was frequently referred to as the "Stink and Doc" show. Schlereth was a part time analyst with ESPN for a time, commuting from Denver to Connecticut, before leaving 760 to go full time with ESPN in 2004. Besides regularly hosting NFL Live, Schlereth is a frequent guest and fill-in host for Mike Golic
Mike Golic
Michael Louis "Mike" Golic is a co-host of ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning and a former defensive lineman at Notre Dame and in the NFL. The NFL website lists him as and ....
on Mike and Mike in the Morning
Mike and Mike in the Morning
Mike and Mike in the Morning is an American sports-talk radio show hosted by Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg on ESPN Radio and simulcast on television, normally on ESPN2. If ESPN is broadcasting a live sporting event during the show's timeslot, Sportscenter will air on ESPN2, and the show's...
, as well as an analyst on NFL Live
NFL Live
NFL Live is a National Football League studio show, currently airing Monday through Friday at 4:00 p.m and 12:30 a.m ET on the ESPN cable network. Formerly known as NFL 2Night, the program is the only NFL-related studio program to air during the week...
and Sportscenter
SportsCenter
SportsCenter is a daily sports news television show, and the flagship program of American cable network ESPN since the network launched on September 7, 1979. Originally broadcast only daily, SportsCenter is now shown up to twelve times a day, replaying the day's scores and highlights from major...
. He has also filled in for Jim Rome
Jim Rome
Jim Rome is an American sports radio talk show host syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks, a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications....
on Jim Rome is Burning
Jim Rome is Burning
Jim Rome Is Burning, originally titled Rome Is Burning and often abbreviated as JRIB, is a sports conversation and opinion show hosted by Jim Rome. Debuting on May 6, 2003 as Rome Is Burning, it was originally a once a week show in primetime at 7:00 PM ET on Tuesday nights on ESPN...
.
Schlereth revealed on the Mike and Mike in the Morning show that he was considering a career in acting, mainly on soap operas, under the name Roc Hoover. Schlereth originally chose the name Rock Hoover, however after cybersquatters took several domain names pertaining to that name he dropped the k from Rock and became Roc Hoover. He announced on May 4, 2007, that he was cast as Detective Roc Hoover, a recurring role, on the soap opera, Guiding Light
Guiding Light
Guiding Light is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running drama in television and radio history, running from 1937 until 2009...
.
Schlereth is also a featured athlete on Athlete 360
Athlete 360
Athlete 360 is a television program that runs on Fox Sports Net channels across the United States. The only television show focused exclusively on sports medicine, Athlete 360 takes the form of long interviews with a different athlete each episode. The athletes, some working and some retired, have...
, a new sports medicine television show. Schlereth is still on the radio in Denver on 104.3FM the Fan. The show features former Broncos teammate Alfred Williams.
Personal life
Mark's daughter, Alexandria, is an actress featured on the MyNetworkTVMyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation...
series Desire
Desire (TV series)
Desire is an American telenovela which debuted at 8:00PM Eastern/7:00PM Central on September 5, 2006, on the American network MyNetworkTV, and ended on December 5. It was produced by Twentieth Television...
.
Mark's son Daniel
Daniel Schlereth
Daniel Robert Schlereth is a Major League Baseball pitcher for the Detroit Tigers.-Early years:Schlereth was born in Anchorage, Alaska, before moving to Highlands Ranch, Colorado. He is a graduate of Highlands Ranch High School. During his senior year, he struck out a school record 19 batters in a...
was selected in the 2008 Major League Baseball's first year player draft
2008 Major League Baseball Draft
The 2008 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft continued Major League Baseball's annual amateur draft of high school and college baseball players, and was held on June 5 and 6, 2008.-First round selections:* Did not sign...
. A relief pitcher at the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
, Daniel was drafted in the first round by the Arizona Diamondbacks
Arizona Diamondbacks
The Arizona Diamondbacks are a professional baseball team based in Phoenix. They play in the West Division of Major League Baseball's National League. From 1998 to the present, they have played in Chase Field...
with the 26th overall selection and currently plays for the Detroit Tigers
Detroit Tigers
The Detroit Tigers are a Major League Baseball team located in Detroit, Michigan. One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Detroit in as part of the Western League. The Tigers have won four World Series championships and have won the American League pennant...
.
External links
- Pro football stats - Mark Schlereth
- NFL.com - 1989 NFL Draft - Mark Schlereth - # 263
- Internet Movie Database - imdb.com - Mark Schlereth
- Vandal Athletics Hall of Fame - Mark Schlereth
- Mark Schlereth.com - official site
- Mark Schlereth's ESPN Bio