Transcript
0:00:00 Marshall Roberts: I think that was the biggest thing I learned through sport, was to take the highs when you have the highs and take the lows when you have the lows. But now I know that where does my identity lie? And everyone preaches this. Everyone talks about faith, family, football. You’ve heard that order from everybody and everyone everywhere. But when you walk away and that play air tag or that coaching tag goes away, where does your identity truly lie? And I really had to recognize that it hurt. It really did. It still does in some ways.
0:00:38 Marshall Roberts: But I know for a fact beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we’re here doing God’s work. For this season, athletics has really helped me understand where my true identity lies. So it’s been an amazing journey. I’m Marshall Roberts and I am undone.
0:01:06 Toby Brooks: Hey friend, I am glad you’re here. Welcome to another episode of Becoming Undone, the podcast for those who dare bravely, risk mightily, and grow relentlessly. Toby Brooks, a speaker, an author, and a professor at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. I spent much of the last two decades working as an athletic trainer and strength coach in the professional, collegiate, and high school levels.
0:01:27 Toby Brooks: Over the years, I’ve grown more and more fascinated with what sets high achievers apart and how failures that can absolutely suck in the moment can end up being exactly the push we needed to propel us along our path to success. Each week, I invite new guests to examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place. I’d like to emphasize this show is entirely separate from my role at Texas Tech, but it’s my attempt to apply what I’ve learned and what I’m learning, and to share with others about the mindsets of high achievers.
0:01:57 Toby Brooks: If this is your first episode, welcome. I hope you love it. I’ve heard it said that it takes 100 episodes of a podcast before you’d really published your first, so after a little over a year, we’re just getting started. Over that time, I’ve had some incredible guests, so if you like this one, be sure to surf back through and pick out some previous episodes of high achievers who didn’t let failure or setback stand in the way of their eventual victory.
0:02:21 Toby Brooks: Marshall Roberts is a former professional football player who was a four year starter at Rutgers, where he was one of the nation’s most effective and electrifying punt returners. Later, he spent several seasons in both the canadian and the arena football leagues and eventually turned to coaching, where he spent time in NFL Europe, with the Frankfurt Galaxy, and with the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers. But it was at Liberty University where our paths first crossed, where Coach Roberts showed himself to be one of the most demanding, yet relentlessly positive coaches I’ve ever met.
0:02:51 Toby Brooks: Always coach him up. He would say everything and everyone else is looking to bring these guys down, but it’s my job to coach them up. It was a simple but life changing perspective for me today. Coach Roberts may have hung up his whistle, at least for now, but he’s back at Liberty, where he serves as the assistant ad for alumni engagement. I hope you’ll enjoy episode 75 Fio with Marshall Roberts. This one’s been a long time coming. I just shared off camera that Marshall Roberts has been on my list since day one.
0:03:33 Toby Brooks: A friend and a colleague and a brother in Christ. Just Marshall. It’s great to have you on.
0:03:38 Marshall Roberts: Oh, it’s great to be here, tob. I really appreciate your time.
0:03:41 Toby Brooks: Yeah, this show really came about. I was talking to some former athletes and I just realized how often those of us that are in this athletic space, we transition from these seasons and we don’t give ourselves permission to really process what that means to us and this concept of identity and how if you’re not grounded in the right things, those changes can really damage in some instances. And some people, they haunt them for years and other people use that and they leverage it to success in new areas. And certainly that’s been the case for you. So you’re currently the assistant ad at Liberty University. Just got back off the plane from an exciting season in Lynchburg.
0:04:24 Toby Brooks: You work with the letter of winners Engagement Association. I know you’re a humble guy, so I’ll rattle off your list here. Four year starter at corner and punt returner at Rutgers. Ended your career as the all time leader in punt return yards with the Scarlet Knights. You’ve got a bachelor’s in criminal justice from Rutgers, a master’s from East Stroudsburg, a storied professional career in Rena Ball and CFL, and then coaching stints all over the globe.
0:04:49 Toby Brooks: And you find yourself now back in Lynchbird and also an ultra endurance athlete on top of all that. So I always start at the beginning. What did you want to be growing up and why?
0:05:00 Marshall Roberts: Yeah, I was very fortunate. I grew up in a very athletic family. My father was this legendary high school athlete everyone talked about. My uncle Mel Roberts was the first base coach of the Philadelphia Phillies and was a longtime minor league coach and player. And from an early age, I just really felt like athletics was my thing. I didn’t know what sport it might be but I always thought I would end up pursuing something in athletics. Of course, every kid has a dream of playing professional sports, which I was fortunate enough to do.
0:05:37 Marshall Roberts: But there was a base foundation and expectation in our household that you would go out and play sports, and you would not only play sports, but you would play it well. That’s how it all got going.
0:05:50 Toby Brooks: So you end up at Rutgers to start your undergrad career. I don’t know much about your high school career, though. Talk me through the recruitment process and who you were as an athlete in those formative high school years.
0:06:01 Marshall Roberts: Yeah, Dr. Brooks, I played everything. I played football, basketball, baseball, and in football, I was very fortunate to play on some very good football teams. I never thought of myself as a really good player, but I was always willing to work and learn. The year before I graduated, two of my teammates went to Rutgers University, and one of them happened to be my cousin, Chris Roberts, who was an amazing running back in himself and had multiple offers. But he decided to go there.
0:06:34 Marshall Roberts: And then one of our offensive linemen, a big six four kid named Alan Mitchell, also decided to go there. So we always knew we were going to play together, meeting Chris and I. So I committed to Rutgers the following year, and that was one reason why I went there. It was about an hour up the road. My father, my parents could get there and see the games easily, and I really fell in love with the school. So that was one reason why I picked there.
0:07:02 Marshall Roberts: I had two other offers, Villanova and Virginia Tech, that were serious. And it’s funny because Bud Foster recruited me. So we have a relationship to this day, but that really came down to those three serious offers, and Rutgers was where I ended up, so it ended up being the best decision for me.
0:07:26 Toby Brooks: Punt return maestro Marshall Roberts electrified the crowd with the second longest return in the stadium’s history.
0:07:36 Marshall Roberts: Marshall Roberts will go in for the touchdown.
0:07:42 Toby Brooks: I know you, and I’ve heard you coach absolutely love the positive approach you take. You’re positive, but that doesn’t mean you’re soft or easy. But I love how you’ve coached corners, and I heard you working with special teams guys. That was a way to find the field. And as a four year starter, I have to believe that being brave enough to return punts, or maybe crazy enough as a d one freshman had to play a role in that. Kind of talk me through the mentality of an 1819 year old kid returning punts in a d one football.
0:08:13 Marshall Roberts: To be honest with you, it’s a little bit of arrogance. I’m five foot nine on the phone book on Sunday, and I always had something to prove. I was a guy that just never shut up. I was always yelling and screaming and they were like, what’s wrong with you? I was like, I can’t help myself. But returning punts was always equated for me as just like playing baseball outfield and the bowl had a lot of very similar twists and turns. Believe it or not, if you read it correctly and if you’ve ever played outfield, the ball is just not going to go straight to you. It slightly curves and the ball turns in such a way that can allow you to read it.
0:08:56 Marshall Roberts: So I always took it upon myself as a challenge to be able to do it. I just really fell in love with every aspect of returning punts, the open field chaos of it, the way you had to just take over and tell guys to get out of the way on a poison call, and your ability to just plainly earn the offense one first down. That was always my goal since high school, just to get ten yards, and then if you got more than that, then that was extra. But I always had this weird thing about returning kicks in general. I just really loved it and I still do. And I’m an old guy watching games, and I’ll see a guy return a punt. The jets kid did it several weeks ago, earlier in the season, to win a game. And I’m 54 years old and I’m breaking out in tears and I’m like, what is going on here? I’m not out there. So that’s how that all started.
0:09:53 Marshall Roberts: Yeah.
0:09:54 Toby Brooks: And then the other side of that, in addition to returning punch, you’re a corner and you have to rely on athleticism and intellect, and you can be absolutely taken to task if you’re not in the proper place at the right time. So you’re on an island out there. And so that’s a mental approach that’s different from, say, an offensive lineman. So working in those two arguably most difficult positions on the field, what did that teach you about yourself?
0:10:26 Marshall Roberts: Yeah, you really had to. And before I became a christian that studied the word thanks to you and was held accountable, I was a very arrogant young man who took on any challenge he could. And playing db, playing corner in particular, you could be the hero 1 minute and then be the one who receives all the criticism the next. So what I learned to do was to my one goal is to just be the same guy. If I could be the same guy every day, whether it was a great thing or really bad thing, I think that was the biggest thing I learned through sport was to take the highs when you have the highs and take the lows when you have the lows.
0:11:16 Marshall Roberts: But now I know that where does my identity lie? And when God told us we were going to walk away from football, and everyone preaches this, everyone talks about faith, family, football. You’ve heard that order from everybody and everyone everywhere. But when you walk away and that player tag or that coaching tag goes away, where does your identity truly lie? And I really had to recognize that it hurt. It really did. It still does in some ways.
0:11:58 Marshall Roberts: People still walk around calling me coach. I still get calls to help people, football wise. But I know for a fact beyond a shadow of a doubt that we’re here doing God’s work. He has us exactly where he wants us to be, doing what he wants us to do. For this season, athletics has really helped me understand where my true identity lies. Yeah. So it’s been an amazing journey.
0:12:32 Toby Brooks: Sure. So as your career is wrapping up at Rutgers, you’re thinking about the next level, as every athlete tends to do. You’re undersized, but obviously you’ve had a really successful career, one of the nation’s most accomplished punt returners, and this idea of playing pro football becomes bigger and bigger. Talk me through the thought process there. As you were wrapping up your senior season, your last season of eligibility, what did the opportunity to play pro football look like to you?
0:13:04 Marshall Roberts: It was very interesting. I got worked out by basically every team came in and worked me out. I ran some decent times. My measurables aren’t great. Yeah, I had a ten foot broad jump. Yeah, I could run under 4 seconds in agility change, and I probably averaged a four or five, ran a couple of four fours. But I expected to get drafted now. I did not expect to get drafted day one, because that was the year they had reduced the number of rounds from ten to whatever, seven or however many rounds it was.
0:13:43 Marshall Roberts: The first day goes by and I don’t get drafted, and it’s the second day and it’s around the fourth round and I start getting phone calls from Detroit. A couple other places that we were interested in Detroit had this guy named Mel Beret, I think his name was. That was a great punt returner. But everyone was interested in my punt returning ability. Long story short, I didn’t get drafted, but I had several team call after the draft. I also had this canadian team call, and I was really interested in that because I thought I could go to Canada and be like a superstar and return punts and then go to the NFL. But that was also the year that they weren’t giving free agents signing bonuses in the NFL, so a lot of them weren’t getting signing bonuses.
0:14:34 Marshall Roberts: My agent knew that, and this canadian team comes along and says, hey, we’ll give you a $6,000 signing bonus. And then the contract was for 39,000. So I wanted to do it. My dad was like, why don’t you just give the NFL a try? But I ended up going to Canada, and I actually made the team, which was amazing. And that’s how the whole journey started.
0:14:58 Toby Brooks: Certainly the goal, I’m sure, was to play at the highest level and for whatever reason, that didn’t materialize as a 53 man roster guy. But you have a very successful career. Arena football, CFL, eventually as a coach, NFL Europe. That’s a very temporary feel. I’ve talked to a lot of athletes who have just labored at the fringes of that breakthrough success, and there’s a real human element to this, like, am I wasting my time? Should I just get a day job? Should I keep chasing this dream?
0:15:36 Toby Brooks: And from one season to the next, minor league sports or, for that matter, CFL? A lot of roster churn. What did you tell yourself during those years? To keep pursuing that dream and to stay after it, as opposed to going and doing the quote unquote sensible thing that maybe some naysayers might have encouraged you to do?
0:15:56 Marshall Roberts: Yeah, my grandma tried to get me to stop. I really am a guy. I love the off season. I love training in the off season. So my parents, my dad in particular, he was very just keep playing. Have fun, because when you start working, you’re never going to stop. And I was just like, okay. So he would ask me to come home and live with them at the house every offseason, no matter where I was. So I would do that. And what I started to do is coach at the high school, my local high school for a guy named Doug Moister and absolutely fell in love with coaching.
0:16:36 Marshall Roberts: I was coaching jv. I was also coaching varsity, and I was also training. So I really just fell in love with those off seasons, and they just started snowballing. I was playing for some very good arena teams, the Orlando Predators. We played in back to back arena bowls. It was a very successful program and a very successful run. I was making enough money to do and live really well. I’m living at home.
0:17:07 Marshall Roberts: I don’t have any expenditures. My car is paid for. And that’s what happened. I just got into a routine and just kept playing and before you knew it, there was one year where I blinked and I looked up and I said, what’s next? And then I get this idea of the high school coaches, like, hey, won’t you get a teacher cert? Go back to school and we’ll hire you. So that’s exactly what ended up happening.
0:17:38 Toby Brooks: So that season marks a big transition. You go from being a professional athlete to a guy with a day job. Granted, it’s still eating that football side of your identity, but what was that like to take the pads off for the last time? Were you aware that was it?
0:17:57 Marshall Roberts: So it was literally, I left Toby in the middle of a season to go be a ga. And here’s when I knew that it was time to go is every national anthem. I would lose it emotionally. I would cry, and I was in a game that year, I’m 28 years old, playing for the Milwaukee Mustangs, and the national anthem is playing, and all I’m thinking about is my matchup, my opponent, and exactly what I’m going to get from that person that day.
0:18:28 Marshall Roberts: But it was zero emotion about it. And I was just like, this is weird. So I played the game, played pretty well because I cheated a lot. I’m an old player, I know what’s going on, but there was zero emotion to it, and I knew it was time to go. That particular transition, that wake up call, was a very pivotal moment for me. And then as a coach, the one thing that I always felt really good about is that I didn’t coach the kid in a manner that said, oh, man, I could do that.
0:19:05 Marshall Roberts: Why can’t he do that? I looked at every individual player and tried to understand their strengths and weaknesses, tried to capitalize on their strengths and tried to help them along with their weaknesses. I think a lot of coaches coach with the idea of, I could do that. Why can’t he do that? So I thought that was always something that I really enjoyed in my coaching experience. Yeah.
0:19:32 Toby Brooks: A lot of folks talk about how transitions like that are sometimes mediated by a push from something. Either they’re injured and their career is cut short or their roster spot gets eliminated. They get traded, whatever, and others. It’s a pull toward something. And it’s not so much that you are reluctantly leaving your life as a player so much as embracing what that next season of life has for you. Did you ever second guess that decision as you made that transition?
0:20:00 Marshall Roberts: No. The comfort that I had, and then as the years went on, I noticed is that I walked away from the game on my own terms. I literally walked away in the middle of a season. So no one ever told me or said to me, you can’t play anymore. I walked away on my own terms. So as a coach, I never had that bitterness as I would help friends through their transition. A lot of guys, they have a hard time adjusting to that, whether it’s transition from high school where you don’t play anymore, or college where you don’t play anymore. And now a lot of my friends who have stopped playing pro ball and how that feels and what they’re trying to do with themselves at this time. And I was very fortunate that I didn’t have that experience.
0:20:47 Toby Brooks: Yeah, you alluded to that. You weren’t a believer in college and football and athletics was your identity. When did your relationship with Christ become part of your life?
0:20:59 Marshall Roberts: Yeah, I was raised in a church. My grandmother, my parents split up, and I lived with my grandmother for quite a bit of time. And her deal was that I had to go to Sunday school. She was a church cook. My grandfather was a deacon in the church. And I could go to Sunday school. And then I was allowed to walk home right down the road in a house. I lived in a neighborhood. Nobody locked their doors. 1990, I was a sophomore, and I came home for the weekend and I went to church.
0:21:27 Marshall Roberts: And I just felt that calling was in that old Baptist church. And they did the altar call, and I was like, it was time. And it was funny because my grandmother was up in the. They had the old folks choir on that day. And I’m walking down the aisle and you hear my grandmother yell and scream out, oh, Jesus, it’s Marcia. She used to call me Marcia. So I get down there and I accept Christ as my savior, and I do the baptism and all that, and really tried to work on studying the Bible and some of those things. But I was just Christian, just out there, just out by myself. I didn’t have a whole lot of support or I didn’t seek a lot of support.
0:22:05 Marshall Roberts: As an athlete. You’re like, I can do it by myself. But it wasn’t until I got to liberty University in 2004 and met people like yourself and Ed Gong’s and King cartridge made me read, like ten books. And when I really started to understand and really reach out and seek his face and know how to. And how to listen and hear the right voices that are the wrong voices that are there too. But that was the transition of my faith, of my walk, my belief.
0:22:41 Marshall Roberts: Right, my choice to believe. So that’s how it started. Yeah.
0:22:46 Toby Brooks: So your playing career is over. You find yourself coaching and you end up NFL Europe with Frankfurt galaxy. You intern with the Pittsburgh Steelers. And so you’re seeing things on a level that you hadn’t seen as a player. Now as a coach, you end up at Liberty VMI. You’ve had stops, ball points in between. What do you think that has taught you that a more traditional career path to a position you hold today might not have?
0:23:13 Marshall Roberts: There’s so much about resilience and the ability to hear what someone’s saying and not the way they’re saying it. And in this profession, you have to have thick skin. You work with all different demographics and religions and beliefs, but the one common thing that brings everybody together is this sport, right? This goal, this mission, this vision. I learned a ton of base, foundational things, to raise a family, to create a football team, to do almost anything, to start a business.
0:23:53 Marshall Roberts: It was all based on the different individuals that I was fortunate to work with, and I wouldn’t give that up for anything. But there are some really hard times, and then there are some really fun times. And the one thing I’ve noticed over the years is I never used to slow down when something really great happened. For example, we would beat a team, and instead of really trying to bask and sit in the moment, I would be on my computer already breaking down the next team.
0:24:31 Marshall Roberts: So I’ll tell you one quick story. We beat Baylor here when I was at Liberty University and when we were on our approach to come home. Huge win. Biggest win at that time in school history. We couldn’t land because it was fog, so we ended up going to Charlote, North Carolina. They put us in a private hangar, the kids went to sleep, and then I sat on a balcony with our head coach, Turner Gill, and an unbelievable man of God and Ron Brown, unbelievable man of God as well.
0:25:03 Marshall Roberts: And we just got there, and we just sat and talked all night until the morning, and the buses finally came at 03:00 so we didn’t get back to campus till later on that afternoon.
0:25:19 Toby Brooks: Liberty’s 2023 season was magical, ending in a berth in the Fiesta bowl. It marked a new height for a program that just made the jump to NCAA FBS level in 2018. However, the team’s biggest win in program history was a victory on the road at power five Baylor while the Flames were still competing at the FCS level, which Roberts recalls a bittersweet moment that happened only by chance due to a weather delay that resulted in a time of reflection and introspection.
0:25:49 Toby Brooks: So often in life, pursuing big goals takes a relentless commitment. And all too often, we can become so consumed with that pursuit that we don’t take time to appreciate those milestones. But for Marshall, he didn’t have a choice. Circumstances made him do it. But it was a much needed dose of perspective that allowed him the permission and the license he probably wouldn’t have given himself otherwise to savor the flavor, even if it was just for a moment.
0:26:18 Marshall Roberts: But that was the first time I ever had an opportunity to really just stop, relax and bask in what had just happened. And so, lesson learned, because throughout my life now I take time to really survey the situation. And I have a 1210 nine and a five year old. And I was able to take the twelve year old to the Fiesta bowl and just really spend quality time with him. I take nothing for granted anymore.
0:26:54 Marshall Roberts: Nothing. I have this continuous clock ticking in my head. I’m 54 years old and I just really feel, am I utilizing my time efficiently? I looked across at my son the other day at dinner time, and I realized I probably only have six years with him left in my home. What am I doing with that time? What am I doing? Am I utilizing every second I can because tomorrow is not given? Am I teaching him principles?
0:27:26 Marshall Roberts: Am I treating my wife the right way in front of them? In general, what are they learning from me? Do they have the coping skills? So, to answer your question, what’s been really just. God has been really just opening my eyes to time. Are you using your time? I don’t mean to ramble, but morning time is my time. I know you work out. I do. And from that 05:00 to about 07:00 time in the mornings, I do some devo. I do.
0:27:59 Marshall Roberts: But I just feel like it’s my time. So I tell you this because I order it incessantly. Everything I’m doing is ordered. I know exactly what I’m going to do the night before. I know when I wake up, I’m going to drink water, going to get my aminos, I’m going to have a little coffee, and then I’m take my cold shower or my cold plunge, and then bam, we going, right? But am I that intentional with my family?
0:28:29 Marshall Roberts: Am I that intentional with my kids? Am I that intentional with people I work with? I work with young people that I know God’s telling me, pour into them and then be humble and open enough to take the correction from them as well.
0:28:45 Toby Brooks: So powerful.
0:28:46 Marshall Roberts: That’s where I am right now. Yeah.
0:28:48 Toby Brooks: And I can tell you, I can remember doing that math with my son who’s now 17. And I remember thinking how short those years would be. But what I didn’t realize was when they’re in your house and you’re their world, you’ve got their attention and they will listen to you, like it or not. And you’re pretty much the voice of authority and those that are maybe coaches or others that they’ll listen to, but you command the majority of their time with a senior.
0:29:20 Toby Brooks: I didn’t budget appropriately. I didn’t realize that. Okay, if he’s twelve, I’ve got maybe six more years. I really had about two more years. And that’s when the friends started getting driver’s licenses and that’s when practices started becoming every day instead of twice a week. And it just really convicted me. But part of this whole podcast thing has shown me that it’s okay. It’s not complacency to look back and be like, I did my best there and putting coaches in his path.
0:29:51 Toby Brooks: Guys cut from the same cloth as you who speak life into him. I know I might not be there, but I know Coach softly is going to be there. And I know that guy and I know exactly what he’s saying to him and the life that he’s speaking into him. So I would just encourage you. Yeah, you’re right on. And then the other side of that is your job as dad really revolves around trying as best you can to put other voices in his ear that are reinforcing what you’ve taught all those years.
0:30:23 Marshall Roberts: You are the company you keep. You are all the time. We tell them, choose your friends wisely, and we also strategically place people in their lives and families in their lives. So I really appreciate that. Yeah.
0:30:39 Toby Brooks: So what do your days look like today? You’re no longer, even though your twitter handle and you still coach Roberts in those social media spaces. I’ll drop those in the description later. But you’re an assistant ad these days. What’s your typical day look like on the mountain?
0:30:54 Marshall Roberts: Yeah, it’s a very interesting role. I get to give back to the alumni and keep them connected in all sports. I have a personal rolodex of 15 years of recruited players here, but I’ve also been able to really connect with football players from the beginning and they’ve been amazing. 73 team back. They were amazing to get to know. I’m also the chair of the hall of fame. So this past year was my first year controlling that entire ordeal from voting to meetings to the largest banquet we’ve ever had with that.
0:31:41 Marshall Roberts: So every day I structure my day, but there’s always an email that changes everything. Like, in particular today, people I’m in charge of reaching out to see if they want to renew a particular sports tickets. I didn’t know that, so I found out today. So I’ll get that done. I’ll figure it out. We have this thing, the saying that I live by, that a lot of people in the office are starting to sing now, but it’s fil, and what fil means, and I have it sitting in front of my desk, is figure it out.
0:32:13 Marshall Roberts: So often days, I just figure it.
0:32:16 Toby Brooks: Out on a swivel, man, as a punt returner, you got to be aware of everything around you, right?
0:32:22 Marshall Roberts: There’s a net long. There’s a net long doubt you’re correct. So I’m looking at my little grease board over there, and I’ve got about. I have six events this spring. This is the 50th year of Liberty baseball. So we’ll have an event there. We have men’s and women’s basketball. We have track and field. We’ll have something at the spring game for football. And so planning those events can be great. Sometimes they’re hard. They really are getting support and getting people to come, and then, obviously, organizing. This entire spring, I’ll have several meetings with a committee. It’s a nine person committee, and we make the decisions on who we vote in, which is always. That’s really a fun experience, because the way I try to do it is everyone gets a voice, and even if you don’t want to talk, I’m going to find a way to get you to talk and give your opinion.
0:33:27 Marshall Roberts: And then it’s a systematic, mathematical call it. There’s apps that you use to calculate voting, and there’s multiple votes that go, and it’s always interesting to see one vote, then the next vote, and then the next vote. But it’s fun. It really is. So my one goal is just that the right thing happens, not my personal feelings. That’s another thing. Coaching football, you learn how to take your personal feelings and weave it for the good of the team or the good of the cause.
0:34:01 Marshall Roberts: So that’s my day on a daily basis. That’s cool.
0:34:05 Toby Brooks: I knew you were fast. I don’t guess I realized you were 4445 fast. And as you told me that, it crossed my mind that, physiologically, you may be the only person on earth that’s probably run a 4440 and completed an ultra.
0:34:21 Marshall Roberts: I don’t even know.
0:34:23 Toby Brooks: Physiologically, those are two very different things. So talk to me a little bit about this marathon and this endurance athlete aspect of you.
0:34:31 Marshall Roberts: I met this guy in six named david horton on campus, and I used to run. I got talked into running with the ad. His name was Kim graham and several professors and this guy named David Horton. And we would run the trails here, which he created with his classes. And one day he says, hey, are you going to run my race? And I said, yeah, I’ll run your race. It was holiday lake, and I didn’t realize it was 33.3 miles.
0:35:01 Marshall Roberts: So I started running with them and running with him on the weekend, and I got into doing ultramarathons, some of the races that he created every year. And you know why I did it? Because it was such the opposite of my, I guess what I thought was my genetic makeup. I was a fast twitch, muscle fiber athlete, and I was going to sprint and run. I may run the quarter, but that was the extent of it. And this was such a challenge for me.
0:35:34 Marshall Roberts: So that’s what I started doing. I started running one or two of his races every year and got to know him really well. He’s an ex physiologist. He’s one of the best there is in the country. Unbelievable teacher. And, man, these days, I know how important lifting, heavyweight, and type two muscle fibers are as far as sprinting. I sprint once a week as hard as I possibly can. I lift once a week as heavy as I possibly can.
0:36:05 Marshall Roberts: So they’re so contradictive to the slow twitch stuff. But I have one goal left. It’s in June. I will run 100 miler. And once I complete that, I don’t think I’ll do much ultramarathoning again, because I know it’s not conducive to longevity, but I’ll run two additional 50 k’s to help in the training process for it. And then after that, I probably won’t run another ultramarathon, to be honest with you. But it’s a fun mix.
0:36:40 Marshall Roberts: I’ve always studied the body. I have a master’s of education, but I studied a lot of x fizz. And when I went back to grad school at 28 years old and sat in some of those undergraduate classes, the whole world changed for me. I was 190 pounds my last year playing football. I ran my first four three. I ran four three nine, something like that. I was very strong, but I would have these sugar crashes in the middle of games where I had to come out and they have to give me glucose, and it popped me back, and I was horrible. I ate pizza all the time I was knocked back, I was extremely muscular, but I was unhealthy. Does that make sense?
0:37:24 Marshall Roberts: So now I know it’s not only what you look like on the inside, more what your blood work say. And that’s where I’m always very conscious of what my blood work is doing. So that’s the whole goal.
0:37:40 Toby Brooks: It’s been quite a ride. You’ve been around the world and back and had a chance to coach and play and teach and lead. If you had a chance to go back in time and speak a word of advice or encouragement into a younger.
0:37:52 Marshall Roberts: Version of yourself, yeah.
0:37:54 Toby Brooks: What do you think you’d say?
0:37:56 Marshall Roberts: Oh, wow. That’s a great and layered question. One of the things that I sometimes have regret in is that I didn’t follow him sooner, that I literally gave myself away to people who didn’t deserve to deserve. I’m speaking very openly about women I was intimate with. There were things that I did in that way that I wish I would have followed the Lord and saved myself for my wife is when we got married, I was 41, she was 31, and she had a bible degree from a school up in New York, a word of life.
0:38:45 Marshall Roberts: And then she came to liberty and did her degree here and became a health and PE teacher. Just an amazing person. I met her while running ultramarathons, and I tell you this because she was a virgin, and I wish I could have said the same to her. So if you ask me, one regret, one piece of advice to young men or a young marsh would be, you don’t have to be so fast to do what the world does, and you can be confident in who God made you and live in the way that God made you. I often say Turner Gill was one of the most amazing influences on me because I saw a man coach in his personality and in his God given Persona.
0:39:36 Marshall Roberts: Turner Gill did raise his voice occasionally, but no way Turner Gill ever even came close to even coming near a curse word. Everything that came out of his mouth was purposeful, and he commanded respect without belittling anyone, and he was always professional, and coaching around him allowed me to understand that I don’t have to coach like other people coached me. I can coach in my same personality and get my point across without using words that other people use.
0:40:19 Marshall Roberts: And that’s what I would tell myself, buddy, follow him. Just follow him and be confident in who God has. Yeah.
0:40:30 Toby Brooks: Great words of wisdom. Listen up, young marsh.
0:40:33 Marshall Roberts: Yes.
0:40:34 Toby Brooks: Next to last one. I love music and the emotions it can represent. If we were to watch a montage of your life. What song would you pick to play in the background and why?
0:40:44 Marshall Roberts: Wow, that’s a great one. Probably. No weapon formed against me shall prosper. I always felt like I was the underdog and before I was confident in him, I was confident in me. I was that silly kid in 10th grade that got up every morning and sprinted a hill because I thought it would make me better. I’d do 20 sprints. I do push ups and sit ups, but I was very consistent. All summer when my dad was driving to work, I wanted him to see me running this hill, but it made me better, it made me faster. I had people tell me, you’re not going to play, look how big you are. And I was just like, okay, you.
0:41:24 Toby Brooks: Alluded to this in terms of your running career, but what for Marshall Roberts remains undone.
0:41:29 Marshall Roberts: Yeah, so I have that list. I have a bucket list. So I only ran the could qualify to run 100 miler. It’s always been something that’s been. I put it on my list every year and I never really had time to run it. Now with the present role I have and the way I can compartmentalize things and I don’t have to go on a road and recruit anymore, there is no excuses. So I’m going to knock that off my list and get the 100 miles or done.
0:42:01 Marshall Roberts: The other thing, tobe, just to tell you the truth. So every year there is this Lichberg track series and it’s an open track series where all ages come. You could be in the heat of a 200 against a twelve year old. But one of my goals is to make sure I can run the quarter mile in a minute or less. So with those different thought processes, that’s something I want to do this year again as well. And then a continual life of a healthy life as far as food, emotion, body composition and the men in my family have died. My dad passed away at 56 and we have other family members who have died early.
0:42:48 Marshall Roberts: I just want to give myself a chance to be around for a while, a holistic way of eating and living life. And I want to see these kids do what they do. I want to be around for them. I want to hold their hand, I want to help their necks. I want to dance at my two daughters weddings and I want to watch them navigate this crazy world. So it’s awesome, brother.
0:43:15 Toby Brooks: How can listeners connect with you? You’re active on socials, anywhere we can follow what you’re doing. Keep up with your work at liberty.
0:43:22 Marshall Roberts: Ali. I’m on everything I’m on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I also have a letter winners listing for all three as well. I cannot stand the phone. In fact, I was starting to wean myself off and then I got into this role where I have to be on it. So.
0:43:38 Toby Brooks: Okay, whatever. Marsha, I really appreciate your time. You were at the right place, the right time for me. I’m so thankful that our paths crossed. You continue to be the bar for me when it comes to coaches. I’m getting emotional talking about it, but that was a rocky season for me and you were a steady presence and I’m forever grateful for that.
0:44:03 Marshall Roberts: What you failed to realize is that we were the same thing for each other. It was one of the hardest experiences I ever had. I questioned everything about why I was doing this, why am I here? What is going on? I don’t understand it. And I tell people all the time that us being accountability partners change my life. Same watching you with your wife and meeting your wife and understanding and seeing the realness of life and what this choice of life that we have, it changed my life. So thank you.
0:44:48 Toby Brooks: Awesome.
0:44:49 Marshall Roberts: I’m Marshall Roberts, the assistant ad at Liberty University, and I am undone.
0:45:03 Toby Brooks: For more info on today’s episode, be sure to check it out on the web. Simply go to undonepodcast.com ep 75 to see the notes, links and images related to today’s guest, Marshall Roberts. I know there are great stories out there to be told and I’m always on the lookout. So if you or someone you know has a story that we can all be inspired by, tell me about it. Surf on over to undonepodcast.com. Click the contact tab in the top menu and drop me a note.
0:45:29 Toby Brooks: Coming up, I’ve got some incredible guests, including Kansas State athletic trainer Jared Alluak, retired Navy SEAL, D one athlete, and now published author Mark Green, as well as retired US Marine Corps major, Stanford, NBA, and now successful mental health entrepreneur Winnie Rajan. So stay tuned. This and more coming up on becoming undone. Becoming Undone is a nitro hype creative production written and produced by me, Toby Brooks. If you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for becoming undone, contact me@undonepodcast.com
0:46:04 Toby Brooks: follow a show on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn at becomingundonepod and follow me at tobyjbrooks on X Instagram and TikTok. Check out my link tree at Linktr eE backs Tobyjbrooks listen, subscribe and leave me a review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. Till next time, everybody. Keep getting better.