Courtesy of Marcus Riley

The 2007 WAC Defensive Player of the Year’s competitive spirit is what drives him to return to the NFL

Former Fresno State football standout Marcus Riley wakes up every morning at around 7 a.m. to go running and lift weights. After completing his workout he goes home to check his phone for missed calls and call teams in the NFL. He then checks his to-do list and emails tape to teams.

It’s all a part of his goal to return to the NFL.

Riley, the 2007 Western Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year’s, life is defined by what he calls his best attribute ”” his competitiveness. It’s what drives him to be successful.

While the current NFL season is winding down with a little more than a week before the Super Bowl, and teams are preparing for the offseason, Riley is preparing for what will be an extremely important offseason for him as well. An offseason he hopes will conclude with an invitation to training camp and ultimately his return to the NFL after being cut from the Chicago Bears prior to the 2009 seaon.

“I’ve always been a competitive person and playing in the NFL has always been a goal of mine. It’s something I strive for,” Riley said. “My motto is ‘winners never quit, and quitters never win.’”

Riley was born in 1985 to Brenda and Stuart Riley, and grew up in Elk Grove, Calif., a small suburb southeast of Sacramento. Riley lived with his parents and brother Gabriel, who is 14 months older than him.

“Growing up he was always beating, and picking on me,” Riley laughs. “I hated it back then, but it made me a better person. It gave me thick skin and made me tough on and off the field.”

The Rileys were a traveling family. Their family vacations were spent wherever Marcus and Gabriel had games. Growing up, Riley was a standout baseball player, and played well enough to compete in the Bambino World Series in Altamonte Springs, near Orlando, Fla.

“Growing up was great. We traveled all the time, mostly for baseball,” Riley said. “As a kid I got to travel to Florida, Utah and Arizona.”

Riley first started playing football when he was 10 years old. When he first started playing he played on both offense and defense. Riley played running back and safety as a kid before eventually moving to linebacker on defense.

As a sophomore in high school Riley stopped playing baseball and decided to focus full time on football. By his junior year he stopped playing offense and only played defense. It was there where he found his ”” playing linebacker.

“Oh man I loved it,” Riley said. “I love playing linebacker. I love everything about it. I love being close to the action and being involved in every play.”

It was this same year that Riley knew he was good enough to play collegiate football. By the end of his senior year he played well enough to earn a scholarship to Fresno State under then-head coach Pat Hill. Riley knew that the Bulldogs were the right fit for him after meeting with Hill, then-defensive coordinator Dan Brown and position coach Tom Mason, who is now the defensive coordinator at Southern Methodist University.

“The coaching staff was a lot like my parents,” Riley said. “They had a lot of the same expectations such as expecting the best, and never settling. Coach Mason and Coach Hill came in for a visit with my parents and they really hit it off well. They had a lot of the same expectations, so I knew that Fresno State was the right fit.”

The other schools Riley was considering during his recruitment were Colorado State and Boise State, but as Riley joked “I couldn’t imagine myself in blue.”

Riley redshirted his first year on campus, but still excelled as the Dick Duncan Scout Team Defensive Player of the Year.

In his redshirt-freshman season, Riley started seven of the team’s 12 games and had 38 total tackles for the Bulldogs, including three for loss and one sack. Riley also started the first 10 games of his sophomore season before tearing his ACL against then-No. 1 USC. Because of the injury Riley barely played his junior season.

“Up to that point, that was definitely the low point of my football career,” Riley said. “I wasn’t sure I would ever play again. I didn’t know if I would ever play well again. I was worried about my speed and ability to change direction. I thought my pro career was gone for sure.”

Riley credits two former teammates, linebacker Ahijah Lane and running back Clifton Smith, for helping him get through the injury.

“Those guys really helped out. Ahijah had been through injuries in the past and he played the same position, so he helped me learn what it took to get through it,” Riley said. “Clifton was in rehab with me that year too, because he also suffered a season-ending injury.”

After coming back from injury, Riley knew his senior season was going to play a big part in whether or not he achieved his dreams of making it to the NFL. Riley’s senior season was definitely a season to remember after being recognized as the single-best player in the conference. The highlight of that season, and one of the plays Riley is remembered for by most Bulldog fans, occurred against Hawaii when he delivered a devastating hit on Hawaii quarterback Colt Brennan, sending Brennan out of the game.

“I saw him scramble and knew when he was about 5-to-10 yards away it was going to be a big hit,” Riley said. “It felt great. It got the whole sideline going. Everybody got up. You always want to be known as a hitter.”

Perhaps one of the most memorable things about that play was the reaction of former defensive coordinator Dan Brown.

“I walked over to the sideline and he came over to me and said, ‘Nice hit. What took you so long?’” Riley laughed. “He was a great guy on and off the field. He knew what you were capable of doing and always wanted you to strive to be the best.”

Besides playing football, Riley was also a proud member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and graduated from the university in 2007 with a degree in communications.

“It was a great feeling to graduate. I was the first one in my family to graduate from college. It’s something I can tell my kids about,” Riley said.

After graduating from college, Riley was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Green Bay Packers in 2008. Riley also played for the Rams where he saw preseason­ action that same year. Riley then went on to the practice squad for the Chicago Bears before being cut in the preseason of 2009.

“That was definitely the darkest part of my football career,” Riley said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I couldn’t even get calls back from the United Football League.”

Riley eventually caught on with the UFL’s Las Vegas Locomotives, where he won the 2009 and 2010 UFL titles before losing the 2011 title to former teammate Clifton Smith.

These days he is starting up a linebacker camp for kids at the junior and high school levels.

“Basically I was at home in between seasons and looking to fill up my time,” Riley said. “I began to search for camps online and noticed that all I could find were quarterback camps, and camps that catered to players on the offensive side of the ball. So I decided I wanted to give defensive players a camp so I decided to create a linebacker camp to teach the kids how to be a pro.”

Riley hopes to teach kids the basics of being a linebacker, such as pass drops, how to shed blockers, how to eat properly and how to do the right things both on and off the field.

Riley is also currently running the football workout program for Warriorz Cross-fit during the offseason. His goal remains the same: to make it back to the NFL.