Everyone knows the play. The football is in the Green Bay Packers’ Hall of Fame, along with a video of the play visitors can watch on a loop.

The date was Sept. 7, 1980, and Packers placekicker Chester Marcol lined up in overtime of a 6-6 tie against the hated Chicago Bears. The snap to David Beverly, the placement, the kick … and it was blocked – right into the arms of the bespectacled and surprised Marcol.

But the Packers’ 1972 second round pick out of Hillsdale – which sounds more like a neighborhood from “Back to the Future” than a college – wasted no time. In the instant of confusion on the part of the Bears, Marcol tucked it home as best he could and darted left. With his brief head start and a couple of friendly jerseys between him and the defense, he scored easily, crashing into the wall of the end zone, where he was mobbed.

In fact, he was mobbed all the way into the locker room. It was an incredible moment to behold in real time for a 14-year-old kid like me – the magnificent nerd having scored one of the most dramatic and improbable touchdowns in Packers lore.

“Marcol appears to be in tears!” one of the announcers exclaimed, adding to the moment. “I believe he’s in tears!”

It’s such a classic Packers moment. But there’s more to Marcol than that one amazing play. For starters, he was named NFL Rookie of the Year in 1972, the only time a placekicker ever earned that honor. He certainly earned it, scoring a lead-leading 182 points as a rookie, then coming back in 1974 to lead the league again. He was voted All-Pro both seasons.

It was an unlikely story for Marcol, who moved from Poland to Michigan with his family when he was 15. His father would take his own life during Chester’s teen-age years, thrusting young Chester into a role of responsibility in the family. Moreover, he had not wanted to leave his friends and life behind in Poland, where he was a standout soccer player.

But it was his soccer skills that got him noticed as a potential football kicker. In a documentary about his life titled “Hillsdale to Hilltop: The Story of Chester Marcol,” he recalls that in his first high school semester, he was playing soccer indoors with his classmates when he got to show off his trademark leg strength. And his physical education teacher John Rowan experienced that strength head-on.

“There was a penalty kick, and I kicked it, and he didn’t know that was a soccer play,” Marcol said in the documentary. “And I just kicked the bugger as fast and as hard as I could, and it went right by his head. He turned around and it hit him in the face, and [he got a] bloody nose. … I was scared and didn’t know what to think, but then they took out these footballs and I went outside and was kicking 50-, 60-yard field goals, kicking the ball off 70 yards, and they were looking at me like I was some kind of second coming.”

And thus, Chester Marcol the Football Placekicker was born, leading to a college career, being drafted into the NFL and finding stardom (well, in a kicker sense of the word), and finally his signature play.

It’s easy, then, to forget that, after that unforgettable touchdown run and his moment of ultimate glory, just a few weeks later, he was cut by Head Coach Bart Starr.

Marcol would end up playing just one more game in his career, for the Houston Oilers. While his skills had clearly declined, there was also the problem of his growing substance abuse issues. He had begun drinking and taking opiates during the 1970s to "treat” pain related to an injury. It led to cocaine addiction.

He would be admitted to rehab more than 20 times over the course of a decade. In fact, he later admitted that he snorted cocaine in the locker room during that fateful overtime victory over the Bears in 1980.

Six years after that touchdown, having hit rock bottom, Marcol attempted suicide by ingesting battery acid. He survived but was hospitalized for two months and endured multiple surgeries. He also did serious damage to his esophagus and other organs in the failed suicide attempt. He still battles health issues to this day but is married. He and his wife have five children. 

And best of all, he is substance-free.

“I didn’t want to go back to the point in my life where I looked in the mirror and wanted to spit at what I saw,” Marcol said in a 2019 interview. “By the grace of God, I’m here. I feel like I’m doing now what my maker wanted me to do, but I wouldn’t want to go through that again.” 

Perhaps not surprisingly, these days Marcol is an addiction counselor and public speaker – he believes he owes his recovery to people who counseled him and simply wants to give back. 

Marcol’s is a full-circle story in a sense. He went from kicking footballs at the highest level to kicking an addiction to helping others kick theirs. So, in a sense, that famous touchdown, that play that’s enshrined in the Packers Hall of Fame and the hearts of Packers fans everywhere, isn’t even close to being the biggest victory of Chester Marcol’s life.