I am not proud to admit that for several Thursdays now I have been glued to my television. In fact, I would rather be out covering a high school track meet on most days than sitting on a couch staring mindlessly into a glass tube.

Still, I am proud of the reason for altering my television habits: I was watching a friend make a fool of himself on national television. On Sunday, I watched him walk away happier than I had ever seen him.

And richer.

That friend is Robert Mariano, aka Boston Rob, of “Survivor: All Stars.”

He and the other finalist, Amber Brkich of Pennsylvania, had a well-publicized relationship while on the show. On Sunday, Mariano asked Brkich, who wore a sleeveless shirt emblazoned with “I Love Rob,” to marry him on live television.

She accepted.

Brkich won the million bucks, and he won her heart. The pride in his smile, and the rose color in his cheeks gave him away. He was (and is) happy.

Tonight at 8 p.m., he gets another chance, albeit a long shot, at $1 million as fans of the show get a chance to pick another winner.

Back in time

For all of the fame (and challenges) Mariano won on “Survivor,” I remember a time when he slept on a pile of hockey bags on the way to inline hockey practice while at Boston University.

The bags smelled like three hockey locker rooms and were piled into the back seats of a 15-passenger van. There were 15 of us, as well.

With one leg shoved into a bag and his head cocked to the side against the van’s window, Mariano let out a snore that blended in well with the noise of the Big Dig outside. A spot of drool rolled down his cheek.

There are many more stories just like this one, including one publicized on the CBS Web site about running the Boston Marathon on a whim while stopping for beer and pizza when he needed food and drink.

This is the human side to a character who many in America have vilified.

“You have to understand, this was a game,” said Josh Falcone. “What he was perceived to be on the show sometimes, and how he is in real life are totally different.”

Falcone would know. Now an account coordinator for Integrated Communications Corp. in New Jersey, Falcone was for four years a member of the Boston University Inline Hockey Team, serving three years as the team captain. All three years, Mariano was the coach.

“You could tell on the show that he wanted to befriend everyone right from the beginning,” Falcone said. “And that was real. But he is competitive, and once he gets into a game, he wants to win.”

Survivor’

When Mariano was selected to appear on “Survivor: Marquesas,” he was midway through his second year as the volunteer head coach of the team.

He left the team for unspecified reasons in the fall of 2001. He told some people that he had to go to California for a job (he worked in construction with his father). He told others he had been incarcerated.

All the while, he spent two months filming his first game of “Survivor.” As soon as he returned, he resumed coaching and said nothing, bound by a strict confidentiality agreement.

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” he kept saying. “I just can’t.”

That year, the conference hockey tournament was at Howard Sports in Saco, with the University of New England playing host. During some down time, we went for a drive.

We took back roads and wound through Old Orchard Beach, Biddeford and Saco for a good three hours. By then the show had started to air and we all knew where he had been, but he still could not divulge any information.

Oh, I tried. But he just kept saying I’d have to watch to find out.

A little less than two years later, Mariano made his way back to coaching. From what the team told me, he hadn’t changed a bit.

“He is as down to earth as you can be,” Falcone said. “He showed his ability to lead on the show, something that we all knew when he was coaching. He has never been afraid to take risks, and he was one of the top survivors in terms of going to CBS charity events and participating in events for them.”

Last year, Mariano disappeared again.

“He told the team that he had to go to Italy to see to the will of a relative who had passed away,” said Chris Daigle, a Maine native who is the assistant director for intramural and club sports at Boston University.

Game or life?

Mariano made his way into the top 10, and then to the top eight. An alliance with Rupert Boneham, Jenna Lewis and his future fiancee, Brkich, got him to the final four. Still, though, he had burned some bridges along the way.

“The thing about reality TV is that it’s not as scripted, like the sitcoms,” Falcone said. “Even though the cameras roll on them 24 hours in a day, you only see five to 10 percent of everything that goes on. I think when he had a chance to speak to everyone at the end, you saw what he was really about. Those were genuine feelings.”

And the feelings of love were certainly evident. Had Mariano chosen Lewis to join him in the final pair, he would have won the million himself. Instead, knowing that Brkich was more popular, he chose her anyway, out of loyalty.

What’s next

Mariano and Brkich will have no problems supporting themselves initially, but what will the sudden fame do to both of them?

Mariano won’t have to sleep on hockey bags in the back of a van. Whether or not he returns as a coach or steps back to be a booster for the team remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure: He will never lose sight of what matters to him. His family and his friends have always come first, and there is no reason to expect any different now.

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