On Wednesday, Amazon unveiled its trailer for the upcoming three-part docuseries on Owen Hanson, Cocaine Quarterback, which is set to detail his unfortunate path to prison after walking on at the University of Southern California over two decades ago.
Hanson served as a member of USC National Championship-winning football team in 2004. But unfortunately, that is not what Hanson is most remembered for.
That is because Hanson was arrested over a decade later in 2015 after the FBI, teamed with the New South Wales Police Force in Australia, ultimately found that Hanson was tied to illegal sports-gambling, money-laundering and a drug-trafficking enterprise of thousands of kilograms of illegal narcotics in connection with the Sinaloa Cartel.
Now, Hanson’s incredible story is set to be documented by Amazon Prime Video in their three part docuseries called Cocaine Quarterback: Signal-Caller for the Cartel. The project, which is set to premiere on September 25, is produced by Mark Wahlberg’s production company, Unrealistic Ideas.
In a post on YouTube on Wednesday, Amazon shared a trailer for the upcoming project, which can be seen in its entirety below.
Despite receiving a 21 year federal prison sentence in 2017, Hanson was officially released from prison significantly earlier than expected back in June and is currently on supervised parole.
Hanson has returned to the public eye following his time in prison, even recently speaking with Front Office Sports about how NIL would have impacted his collegiate career had it been around while he played. And shortly after being released from prison, Hanson spoke to how it was actually prison that “saved his life” after stopping him from going down a darker path than he was already on.
“I should have been dead a long time ago,” Hanson told The Mob Museum. “I should have been killed by the cartel. I should have overdosed on cocaine that was laced with fentanyl. Going to prison saved my life, and I can honestly say that as scary as prison was, it’s the best thing that happened to me because now I feel better than ever.”
Given the mass interest around both true crime and college football, this project from Amazon should certainly garner the attention of not only people who remember his playing days, but those simply interested in hearing his fascinating story. At the very least, the Cocaine Quarterback title should draw some views out of pure curiosity.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.