From the Inner City to Gridiron Glory: The Inspiring Journey of Marcus Washington

I just talked about his name . Sorry about that , marcus , thanks for joining .

I feel I feel like Um but um from from high school I I did not feel like I was um totally ready for the college level . Um , because I , the coaching and the facilities were lacking in the in the inner city of Chicago . So that put me a step behind uh , most , most players at the college level .

Um , so I um started off at a place called Triton junior college and so going to six o'clock the junior college ranked um was probably the best decision and best thing that I'd ever done um for myself and uh just over from overall development .

Um from there went to uh Iowa Wesleyan college and that's where I met uh coach mommy and his great staff Um and really really learned um a lot about football at that point in time and learned to love football .

You know you learn those things . So you know I relate to that a lot because you know I started football and my buddies were playing football . I just I had a love for for the sport . I still do . Uh drives my wife crazy from Thursday to Monday night when we're sitting here watching uh every game possible From college all the way through the pros .

We get a little mix in uh their high school on uh Friday nights and uh now Saturday mornings , as my son just started JV football and I finished his first season at JV football as a freshman , so getting a little bit of that and uh , it's fun .

You know I just love the game and I love being around the game Um , even though it did uh cause me to have an injury that took me out of swimming . But it is what it is . You know what I mean . So you mentioned it a little bit there , uh , how you met coach mummy .

Um , we may hear each other's voices maybe twice a year , uh , but between text messages and hellos via uh Facebook , uh , we keep in touch .

If they're in a sport or involved in anything , I follow that , uh , for the guests that have been on the show . So , for all the athletes that I've had on the show and all the coaches that are on the show , my phone doesn't stop dinging with updates about what's going on .

I recently , uh , did talk to uh coach mummy about his son being a Colorado State Uh and added them to my update list to keep in touch with with his son and see what's going on , which is is fun , but the time zones are killing me now , being on the East coast , and that three hour time difference kind of it plays a factor sometimes when you try to get

some sleep and your phones dinging constantly throughout the night .

Um , and you have to keep in mind and this I didn't know uh , you're playing with the division one players For the most part , um any juco that you go to , especially the juco , especially the jucos that are uh known for um having uh making transitions for their players , making those things happen .

So I just so happened to go to a junior college where uh transitions were um , were very rapid and uh , they had a good name for themselves at that time . Um , and to be honest with you , during my juco years , uh , um , I did not get very much playing time . I saw the field um , but didn't make any catches Um , but continued to work hard with the team .

My Juco coach saw that and when I started getting recruited for my four-year institution , my Juco coach made sure to let that be known to some of the coaches that came in , looking for just players that had leadership ability , had some type of experience at the college level and , just wanting to , just were hungry . And that's who I was . Yeah .

But I mean I was tall , I got used to sparingly red zone opportunities when you know we need to jump ball , all right , let's stick to the six foot five route there , throw it up and see if he can go up and get it , type of deal .

But the coaches realized , you know , from freshman year all the way through , even my senior year wasn't labeled a starter , sparing playing time , like I said , just kind of red zone opportunities , maybe some special teams here and there .

But started to earn a backup role and starting on all special teams at that point by my senior year just because of the work that I was putting in . If they needed somebody to fill in for a spot , I was the first guy to jump in and be on the dread scout teams and got beat up by the starters every day and practice .

And you know I appreciate those athletes more because they go unnoticed to the public and because the stats aren't there . But all the coaches will see that and know I got a hard nose kid who's going to come out and help my team win .

You don't hear a lot about all this guys on the practice squad and the pros , but he's emulating the other team and helping get the team ready for the starters and everything like that . I appreciate those athletes a lot more . I mean , being that athlete is that kind of where your mindset is to yes sir , you are so right about that and that's the .

You have your special teams , you have specialists , you know you have so many different positions that have that run a certain lane . It is the most complex sport , I believe , but the best sport when it comes to team . There's nothing like it , you know , and what I , what I also love about football is the .

Not only are you physically preparing , but you are also mentally preparing as well . I love the mental part of the sport and I feel like that's where I really excel . I just , I just would tell myself and I would visualize , you know , doing great things and helping my team out . It was never , ever about me . I just , I never really saw it that way .

I always played for my team and always played for my coaches , yeah 100% .

And some of my friends didn't get it . During the season , like I would watch film through the week , like on the offense and defense , to prepare myself for practice , for scouting . And my friends are like why aren't you coming out as like I'm ? You know I'm watching some game from the ?

Like you're not a starter , like you're not even a backup at this point time . Why are you watching film ? So it's only going to make everybody else better . You know what I mean , if I can . They always had me as the scout team quarterback .

I don't know why , because I was a receiver , but they always put me at the scout team quarterback and if I knew how that quarterback moved in the pocket , what his cadence was , everything like that that helped our defense to be better . We I mean we went five and five with until my senior year , but they were close games .

I mean , like I feel like you know you prepare the team , the defense . Okay , they know his cadence is this , they know this , they're ready for it come Friday night and everything like that , or Saturday if you're in college or pros , whatever day the game is on . And trying to beat that into my 14 year old's head right now is a challenge , you know .

I watch all teams , I watch all games , but I watch for the intelligence of the game . I watch to see what coaches do . I watch to see what decisions are made . I watch to see when timeouts are taken . I watched the strategy behind the game . So I watch it a little differently than maybe most people do , but that just makes it more interesting to me .

You know , sometimes I predict , you know I'll sit here and talk to my wife , as you we sitting on the couch with me , but sometimes I'll mutter something to her and I'll just say you know , well , they're going to do this or this is what's going to happen , and it just it holds up most of the time , but that's what I enjoy about it , yeah , and you know .

They never sat bench , they never had to work I don't want to say that to work hard to get to where they were , because they did put in time after that , but you know what I mean . They weren't the grinders that grinded to get to to where they were at . And , like you , I sit there and I I critique the game while I'm watching it . Like you know .

Well , I was like , oh , how did he miss that ? I was like , well , the linebacker missed it , missed his assignment . That's why he was so wide open . That linebacker supposed to go here and that type of defense . How do you know that defense ? Just from looking how they were lined up , I love the game . I mean , I know he's out of position .

You know what I mean . And yeah like you said , the timeouts throughout the game . I mean , you know , as a fan , sometimes it's like why are they taking the time out here ? Let's speed the game up sometimes , but it's like , no , that's that strategy and you know , you think of you .

Don't think about that too often when , when you're just a fan , right , right . So any memorable moments that you want to talk about from your playing days .

The next play is the important one . I first heard that one from Coach Mami and I find that to be very

true , because that is also a mental part of the game is Playing the next play and just forgetting about what just happened . And so that made Things a lot better when it came to playing . But memorable , just making plays for my team . You know , not the touchdowns , but the first down . Those came a lot often for me .

Yeah , in a season I probably scored touchdown every other game . Some games I had multiple touchdowns . All right , that's a bonus , but I had an awful lot of first down and those were , you know , having having the ability to keep the ball , move the ball , stay on the field , making progress , moving forward .

Those are the kind of things that were important to me , and this is what I see if I'm on the field , that means my opponent , which is the defense , who's probably working harder than me ? Because , don't get me wrong , I have a lot of respect for defenders . They work hard .

If anyone is exerting a lot of energy Between an offense and a defense , it's gonna be your defense . So keeping keeping them on the field made a difference . Yeah , running them all over the field made a difference .

I'll take that three yards a carry back because if you do the math , three times four is 12 . That's a first down . You know you're , you're , you're running the death out of the defensive line . You're getting them tired . They're gonna start missing assignments . It's gonna be easier to block .

I'll take an average three yards to carry back over a guy that's gonna dance in the backfield and try to make these 10 , 15 , 20 yard runs and pad their stats . Now , give me , give me that workhorse , just that power back . This he's .

He's not gonna make any highlights that way , but he's a grinder and , like you said , he's keeping the defense on the field and we we ran at . Looking back , it was a great offensive scheme .

When I was in high school we ran the ball Probably 75 to 80 percent of the time in the first half , ran the ball , it even , and it was like third and 10 plus , we're running the ball and and fans were screaming we needed past the ball . I heard one and it sticks with me today and I say it all the time and it's funny .

But you know that somebody said all the forward pass was invented in the 70s . You should use it . You know what I mean . I Dla , I laugh now here and that , but I'm the second half , the exact opposite . A lot more play actions and we threw the ball a lot more because the defense was tired , roboto , just completely running the ball .

In the first half the defense of line was slow getting off the off the ball , they were missing assignments and it was a lot easier in the second half for us .

But it was because we put the working in the first that , yeah , we , we might be down 14-7 , it wasn't high scoring games , but it was entertaining when you look back on it and you see that now , knowing that the mental side of the game that you know . Yet that was a strategy that our coaches knew , but none of us were receivers .

You know me , you know I was okay . Can we throw the ball a couple more times ? In the first half you get a little bit more , but you know , Looking back it was . It was a good game plan and you know a lot more teams I think need to to look into that .

So it is , uh , yeah , that's the , that's the science and the intelligence of the game .

You know everything that I learned in Sports and football especially . You know , growing up and playing the game for as long as I did it was , you know , had a coach and my dad and beat this into me , and 34 years old and I still use it to this day . Early is on , time on time is late and late . You probably shouldn't even bother showing up and .

To this day . I I still remember I showed up to One of my day jobs when sales jobs . I showed up the exact time I was supposed to be there and I went in . I saw my boss once said , hey , I'm sorry , I'm late . He looked at his watch he goes , you're right on time .

I was like like I said I'm sorry , I'm late and I just , you know , I just kept moving and went about my day . You know , and I , I I lived by that today and I learned that in junior high when I was first starting to To get into the game of football .

You know , early is on , time , on time is late , and you know it's , it's something I live by today . Did I got to know , did how mummy have anything like that when you played for him that you still take to this day ?

But when it came to timing , when it with our offense and how we ran things and how things had to be pinpoint , I tell you what we used 80% of our practice time just running through plays . So typically at the college level , it's a lot of conditioning , a lot of one-to-one , you know , going between players there . No , we did a lot .

We spent a lot of our time running over plays and running through scenarios and working on our timing with one another , with the linemen , with the backs , with the receivers , with the inside receivers , you know . So timing was definitely important to him . And Coach Leach was another monumental figure for our , for my experience at Iowa Westland .

class one day and explained to me what she does besides her time at the college there , and she is to this day . She's a retired school psychologist Now . At that time I had no idea what a school psychologist was . I just put the two terms together , school and psychologist .

So I figured , okay , well , somebody is a psychologist that works for a school district and works with kids . Well , that's somewhat true . So she became my mentor because I wanted to learn a little bit more about school psychology , and more so as we move forward .

I was introduced to a college professor at the University of Iowa who was head of their graduate program , their PhD graduate program there . He encouraged me to apply . They typically had 60 applicants but only accepted five , and I just so happened to be accepted for that after my senior year . So that was my dilemma here . What do I do now ?

After getting accepted in February of my senior year February of 1992 , I was pretty much ready to just start my career and go into graduate training to become a school psychologist . Lo and behold , about a month later , coach Mummy calls me and asks me if I wanted to come down to Baudasta State University as a graduate assistant .

Now I'm very honored with that , because this tells me that coach amires my leadership ability , that he amires my intelligence for the game , and that he is willing to take a chance with me to build other players and programs , like I know he was going to do , because that's what he has always been known as a builder or a rebuilder of program , and so he

trusted that I could do that as well . Well , he also called a dear teammate of mine by the name of Dana Hogueerson . Not sure if you're familiar with who Dana Hogueerson is .

However , as you can see , now I decline because I wanted to move forward with my graduate training and become a school psychologist , which I am today , and Dana accepted , which he is doing extremely well .

I'm very proud of him because he has definitely has that intelligence , he has that leadership and even as players he was always there soaking up knowledge and he was a great player himself , one of the best route runners I've ever seen Crispy route runner . So there it is .

So sometimes I wonder well , could I have been making $10 million a year like Dana Hogueerson ? Maybe not , but I'm happy with what I'm doing now and working as a school psychologist .

I've worked for school districts that have been open to ideas that I've had and practices that I have input into my regiment , and what I do is that I do assessments , I work with families , I work with students , I work with staff and I look to find a way for us to serve and educate all students , whether or not they have a disability or not .

That's my job . That is , to figure out a way to educate everyone .

This will be the first time , but I am dyslexic , so it took a while for me to figure out how to learn how to do certain things and that talked to a lot of school psychologists , so I know what you deal with on a daily basis .

So it's rewarding I cannot say that word rewarding work that goes unnoticed a lot of the time and I applaud people like you that do that type of work , someone who still scratches and claws to learn stuff at 34 . And I mean it's something that you adapt to and I make the joke all the time .

Well , you don't become a standup comedian because you were good at school work and I always still make that joke . I mean I passed , I got a college degree , so it , but it was . People don't realize . People like , oh , that class is easy . Well , maybe for you it's easy , but it takes a little while for me to process everything .

I mean being a visual learner . I have to see it , touch it , do it , and then I know it . And so I get that and I applaud what you do tremendously . So do you have that sense of reward ? At the end of the day ? I would imagine knowing that you were able to help a student .

I've even done , I've tried , some coaching junior high level , some high school , but it's more so to develop young players . Didn't have a big role in coaching at all , but it was more teaching . But that's what I love to do . I love to give those opportunities to young people that we feel may be a little .

They may have a difficult time learning understanding , maybe even having a difficult time having the opportunity as well .

Just kind of , do you still keep in touch with those guys ?

In particular , he's a catalyst to that , so I'm very proud of him . But , yeah , facebook . Lots of my former teammates are either high school coaches or college coaches . We're always encouraging one another . Now what we have is this incredible , incredible second generation of players .

Most of a lot of my teammates have these sons and daughters that absolutely excel at their sports and it is incredible and we absolutely celebrate it Whenever they put post-out and , if it all possible , if I could ever get to a game we're always inviting the invitation's , always there .

But wow , it is so incredible how the sons and daughters of my teammates they are doing incredible .

It's tough for me to translate what I had to do to what he has to do , but he is by far already a better football player than I was . And my buddies every game that they're at they'll nudge me like , hey , I think your son's gotten on the field more than you have already in a high school game and we take shots at each other .

But it's all good fun , but it's all praising him . You know what I mean that he's out there , what he's doing and they love to see it and they make it to as many games as they can . Being that he plays on Saturday mornings right now it's a little tough To come down .

I live about two hours away from most of my friends and old teammates , so them taking a two hour trip on Saturday morning to be at a 10 am kickoff . They don't make it to a lot of games , but they're always asking after when they know about when the game's oh , how do you do ?

It's good to see that and keep those relationships going and I love that and I look forward to those texts every Saturday afternoon . Well , how the little man do . And I was like little man , he's not a little anymore , he's almost bigger than me . He's six foot 250 pounds . He's a big boy .

Five random questions for the wonderful manager of the podcast , johnny Fiddy Fowl-Coney . He sent these to me today , marcus , so we're going to read these together . These are the most random questions . They're kind of rapid fire , but you can elaborate if you need to . So if you're ready for this segment , we'll go ahead and do some .

Question number one what is your favorite season of the year ?

They've been more random than that , but , like that's , we had to get away from this segment for a little bit , so I'm happy we're bringing it back , but you know it's , he definitely was off his game on those ones , because they're typically a lot more random than that .

And for the new listeners out there , this is the segment we've been running for three years now on the show , and I don't know how he comes up with these questions sometimes , like they're that random , and he sends them to me on the day I'm supposed to record . I think his main thing is he wants to hear the comedian laugh before he asks the question .

I don't know it's . I love Fidget and that , though , I wouldn't be here without him with this show , so that's actually a good idea , though I like that . Yeah , I mean he , I mean Johnny , and I go back to college . He's one of the guys that you know . I thought we've stayed in touch and now we run this podcast together and everything like that .

And I'll tell this quick story for the new listeners out there is that in college I did not know his name was Johnny because everyone called him Fitty . I had no idea his actual name was John Valkoni and he still goes by that nickname to most people today . You know everyone knows him as Fitty .

So we were just thinking of you know we need a fun way to end the show . You know what's the way to . You know , we have a lot of administrators , coaches , athletes , like that . This is still a comedy podcast . We want a fun kind of way to end the show .

And you know I was like you know , a buddy of mine was running a show and he did like the Mount Rushmore of , and it was like I was comedians regardless , so who's your Mount Rushmore of ? Standup comics ? And he would ask every guest that he had on that . I was like what if we did something like that ?

And as soon as I said it , it was like fast 55 . I'm known for random questions . Five questions . That goes with Fitty . I was like I love it , let's do it , and we've rolled with it ever since . But yeah , I had no idea . His name was Johnny Falcone , and it's just . I only knew him as Fitty . I love it too .

But , like I said , we are running down near the end of the episode . Marcus , I give every guest this opportunity at the end of the show .

If there's anything you want to get out there , whether it's to promote anything that you got going on , or even if it's just a good message for the listeners out there , I'm going to give you about a minute and the floor is yours All right , all right .

So I just I want to if anything , I am always an advocate for students , young people , to engage in extracurricular activity , no matter what it is . It definitely takes you a long way . I mean , it gives you the experiences that you need outside of the classroom , outside of home . You get to enjoy these things with your peers .

I just think that it's a wonderful opportunity and it builds a lot of different skills for you for the rest of your life . So if there's anything that I'm promoting , I am promoting extracurricular activity . I'm promoting movement opportunity . You should always have the opportunity to move , move your body , move around . If you don't necessarily

work out at a gym , go walk . I'm just an advocate for that . But doing these things with your peers is priceless .

I really appreciate you coming and taking time out of your evening to sit and talk with me for the better part of almost 45 minutes now , which I didn't even realize . We're a little bit over the show , but that's all right . I love it when shows go long because it means we had a good conversation . But thank you , marcus Washington , for joining the show .

That is going to do it for this week's episode of the Ride Home Rance podcast . As always , if you enjoyed the show , be a friend , tell a friend . If you didn't tell them anyways , they might like it just because you didn't . That is going to do it for me and I will see y'all next week .