Welcome to "Catching Up With ..." an occasional feature where we chat with someone who used to be involved with Michigan athletics. If there's someone you'd like to see AnnArbor.com catch up with, e-mail michaelrothstein@annarbor.com.

Marcus Knight won a national championship in 1997 with the Michigan football team as a little-used wide receiver. In the two seasons after, he had five 100-yard receiving games, including three in a row in 1999, when he totaled 794 yards and six touchdowns.

After leaving Michigan, the Sylacauga, Ala., native split time with the Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFL, and spent time in the Arena League and NFL Europe. Now retired as a player, he's an assistant coach at Valparaiso and pursuing his Master's degree.

Q: How did you get hooked up coaching at Valpo?

Marcus Knight: “Well, I didn’t actually graduate with my class (at Michigan) because I had an opportunity to go play professional ball as an undrafted free agent. When I left, I was a little bit shy of getting my degree. Once my professional career was done, I saw an opportunity to go back and finish my degree, which is what I did. When it was all said and done, an opportunity came for me to get my Masters and be a graduate assistant at Valparaiso, so I took that opportunity and I’ve been there ever since.”

Marcus Knight

courtesy ValpoAthletics.com

MK: “I feel like speaking to young people and having a chance to impact their lives is something I enjoy doing and something I can naturally do. I had an opportunity in Oakland to work with some high schools out there and I enjoyed it. I didn’t know how the coaching world would be and that’s what I’m learning a lot more about now. I did know, from my experiences with the coaching staffs that have coached me, how they affected my life. I knew that if I took it seriously, it would be something I would have an opportunity to do.”

Q: What’s been the biggest surprise? The biggest ‘Whoa, I didn’t expect that’ in coaching?

MK: “How many different roles as a coach you have to take on. Sometimes you’re a coach, sometimes you’re a mentor, sometimes you’re a psychologist, sometimes you have to wear suits. Each time, you have to be consistent and that’s not an easy thing to do because sometimes you have to get a point across by being a little bit more aggressive than normal. If you do it too often, you can lose a kid and kill their motivation. And if you don’t do it enough, they don’t push themselves enough to be the best they can be. So you have to find a balance between the two.”

Q: How have you been able to do that so far?

MK: “Taking my own experiences from where I played and my baseline is I take what worked for me. I know what would work for me as a player. I take that baseline and I try to apply it in any way I see a young man might need it, because kids are different. Some are more sensitive than others, some can take a little bit more. I pride myself on being able to assess when a young man needs to hear an encouraging word or be told how it really is and are getting a little bit too big for their britches.”

Q: Being in The Region (Northwest Indiana), do you hear more about being a Michigan guy or ‘Wow, you were in the NFL?’

MK: “I’d say it’s an even amount of both. When I first got here, it was a lot of the NFL. Michigan is a formidable program, a very well-respected program, the winningest college program out there and it’s like the NFL in its own right to a lot of fans. I come from the state of Alabama and you can’t tell anybody from the state of Alabama that Alabama and Auburn aren’t to the level of a professional team in that state. So it’s all relative. I was blessed with the opportunity for people to look at me and that’s how they get their first impressions sometimes. Then it’s up to me to take what I’ve learned and how I’ve been raised and teaching that on. I get both and take it for whatever is being brought to me.”

Q: Besides coaching, what else have you been doing?

MK: “I’ve been getting my Masters, in the last stages of getting my Masters in sports administration, and that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. School and work. We hired a new head coach here at Valpo and I had an opportunity to coach under the last coach, who gave me my first opportunity, Stacy Adams. The transition and the two different coaching styles has been a very good learning lesson for me. Both of them have taught me a lot. Coach Adams taught me a lot and coach (Dale) Carlson is in the process of teaching me a lot, so I’m thankful for all the opportunities I’ve had. Now it’s just about these young guys and teaching them how to be leaders and grow up to be men, because the thing you realize is there is a lot of growing up to do and this game can teach that.”

Q: Looking back at your football career, what memory stands out?

MK: “I guess it would be the (2002) AFC Divisional game before going to the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl was great and it is something I won’t forget for the rest of my life, but in the AFC Divisional game, we played against the Jets and I was at gunner. A punt came down and it just happened that I timed up perfectly where the punt returner didn’t fair catch, I had an opportunity to run through the tackle, he fumbled the ball, we got it back. It wasn’t the main determining factor in the game, but we did end up winning and that was a really good feeling, that whole moment, showing we were competing and having a chance to contribute in that manner. It was something I had never done in my life before, and I was doing well at it. It was a great experience altogether.”

Q: How much do you see of Michigan this year and what do you think of their team now?

MK: “It’s a lot different than what I’m used to as far as the athleticism, I think they are faster and quicker from an old-time guy, height-wise it is a little bit different. But that’s a difference in philosophy and style. I think coach (Rich) Rodriguez and his staff are doing a very good job at what they do and implementing his system. It’s comparable to what’s going on now and what I’m learning at this level, at Valpo. I’m dealing with two different coaching styles and philosophies. People have different philosophies with which they run their organization and their business. It’s how you acclimate to it and see how you fit into it. So watching Shoelace do his thing and having a chance to meet him, not just him but that whole team when I was there getting my degree, I had a chance to conversate with the young man and tell him how I felt. Just to see him having success, it’s just a great feeling for me being a Michigan man and where the team is going. I just wish the best for that staff, that team and for it actually to come into fruition, hopefully they can see it do well and finish it out and continue to make Michigan proud and happy fans. That can be a determining factor in having a great experience at Michigan and not having a great experience at Michigan.”

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein