Dan Marino is founder of the Dan Marino Foundation. Marino is one of the most celebrated athletes in the world. As quarterback of the Miami Dolphins for 17 consecutive seasons, he held 20 National Football League Records, including “Most Passes Completed, Career” at an astonishing 4,967, “Most Seasons, 3,000 or More Yards Passing” at 13 seasons, and “Highest Completion Percentage as a Rookie”. In August 2005, Dan was guaranteed his place in sports history by being inducted into the Football Hall of Fame. Since retiring in 2000, he has leveraged his sports expertise into new arenas as a co-host of HBO’s Emmy Award winning weekly football show Inside the NFL and as an in-studio host of CBS’s The NFL Today.
Motivated by experiences in raising their second son, Michael, who has autism, Marino and his wife, Claire, created the Dan Marino Foundation in 1992. The Dan Marino Foundation has been an important resource for children with developmental disabilities and for the families who love them. In 1998, the Foundation opened the Miami Children’s Hospital Dan Marino Center, the only facility of its kind in the region offering comprehensive medical services for children with special needs. This year, the Center will add an adaptive aquatics center and a sensory gym. In 2004, the Foundation launched an innovative, web-based initiative, childnett.tv, which features educational programs on a myriad of neurodevelopmental issues of interest to parents and professionals. In 2006, the Marino Autism Research Institute (MARI) was founded. This “virtual institute” is designed to develop and implement cutting-edge research, including clinical studies and training, and to address key questions about the causes of autism spectrum disorders and their treatment. In collaboration with our founding universities, the first MARI Scientific Symposium entitled, “Environment and Autism Etiology,” will be held in April, 2008 at Vanderbilt University.
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