New Florida license plate features Dolphins legend Dan Marino and benefits his autism foundation

He rewrote the NFL record books and carried the Miami Dolphins during 17 of the team’s most glorious years. Now NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino is tossing his likeness onto Florida license plates.

Approved last month by a stroke of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s pen, the new specialty plate has Marino’s autograph overlaid on an image of the legendary quarterback dropping back for a throw in his now retired #13 jersey.

If you’re willing to toss $33 to show your love for Marino, $25 of it will go the Dan Marino Foundation to benefit the Marino Campus, which helps students with autism and other learning disabilities.

“I am excited about our license plate,” Marino said. “Help us to score a touchdown for our students and young adults.”

The Marino Center was started in 2014 to help high school graduates ages 18-30 with autism and other developmental disabilities to get jobs and acquire college-level skills. The center has a campus in Fort Lauderdale where students focus on skills such as information technology.

“The Academy Program supports skill-building in people with developmental disabilities by tapping into their interests, building social and professional networks, and exposure to what their local community offers,” Dan Marino told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Marino started the foundation in 1992 after his second son, Michael, was diagnosed with autism.

The license plates have been in the works for years, but have failed to get approval from state leaders.

“We started in 2017, and and every time, we would make it in to a house bill, but it was always vetoed,” said Mary Partin, CEO of the Dan Marino Foundation.

A bill was approved by the state legislature this year to authorize more than 30 specialty license plates, including the Marino plate. DeSantis signed it into law in September.

But you won’t be seeing Marino on the backs of cars just yet: Before going into production, 3,000 of the license plates must be pre-ordered. As an incentive, the foundation will enter the first 1,000 customers into a drawing for a chance to win one of 10 footballs signed by Marino.

Florida drivers can visit the Marino Foundation website to order the plates.

Money raised from the license plates are crucial to the program. The funds are unrestricted so can be spent wherever the foundation most needs it. Most will go to job coaching or any items that students will need in order to go work, transportation or technology.

When students graduate the program, they often still need support after it, so the unrestricted funds from the license plates can be funneled to anything the students might need in the future, whether it’s virtual job coaches or clothes needed go to a job or job interviews, Partin explained.

Like many other nonprofit organizations, the Marino Foundation was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Fundraising events that are crucial for soliciting money from donors had to be cancelled, ultimately costing the foundation $800,000 in potential donations.

“All that was wiped out," Partin said. "So when you have these other dollars that are unrestricted, this helps make up for dollars like that. "

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