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Stanford University Baseball Coach Mark Marquess Shares Life Lessons from Four Decades at the Helm

08.02.2016

PCA hosted supporters at the Stanford Faculty Club Library for breakfast with Mark Marquess as the soon-to-retire coach was interviewed by PCA Founder Jim Thompson. Topics included the coaches who most influenced Marquess, such as football coach Dick Vermeil, and the role they played in helping him develop as both a player and a coach.

Marquess observed that the longer you coach, the more you realize that it’s the life lessons that truly matter, that coaches often do not get the feedback that their motivational tactics paid off until years later, and that although some athletes don’t appreciate their coaches’ methods in the moment, they may later come to credit coaches for relationships the athletes developed and for the life lessons that helped them on the ballfield and beyond.

Coaching for more than 40 years, Marquess has had five or six players “make it” in the pros, though everyone he’s ever recruited says they will be “that guy.” To Coach Marquess, this is further evidence that life lessons through sports are what matter most, because baseball careers don’t last forever.

PCA Development Officer Patty Rally organized the event along with Stanford University Deputy Athletics Director and PCA Board Member Ray Purpur.