How Akron and Bob Huggins almost led Kentucky’s Vince Marrow to a different career path
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The path that led Vince Marrow to being one of the most important figures in Kentucky football’s resurgence could have ended much differently if he had followed through on his initial plan as a high school student more than 35 years ago.
As a senior at Cardinal Mooney in Youngstown, Ohio, Marrow initially signed to play with Akron, Kentucky’s opponent Saturday at Kroger Field.
But Marrow’s decision had little to do with football. Instead, he had signed to play basketball for a coach in just his third season leading a Division I program named Bob Huggins.
“I was at five-star basketball camp and I was going back and forth to going to play football or basketball in college,” Marrow told the Herald-Leader this week. “I fell in love with Bob Huggins. I just fell in love with him. He recruited me very hard.”
In an April 12, 1987, Akron Beacon-Journal article, Huggins cited his loyalty to Marrow and the other class of 1988 signees in his decision to turn down a job offer from Toledo to stay at Akron. Huggins would stay at Akron two more seasons before moving to Cincinnati where his Hall of Fame career would take off.
But Marrow never made it to Akron.
Marrow eventually bowed to pressure from friends and family in Youngstown to stay home and play for Youngstown State, then an Ohio Valley Conference rival of Akron.
“My family and a couple people from Youngstown went up to meet with (Huggins),” Marrow said. “He wouldn’t let me out of my national letter of intent. Some people had to come, they talked to him. Came out of the meeting and I was out of the national letter of intent.”
Marrow would play two seasons for the Youngstown State basketball team before returning to the football field. He eventually transferred to Toledo, where he played two seasons of football before being drafted by the Buffalo Bills in 1992.
After a professional career that saw Marrow play in 10 games for the Bills in the 1994 season then make multiple stops in NFL Europe, Marrow began his football coaching career in NFL Europe in 2005. That coaching career eventually led him to Lexington as the tight ends coach on fellow Cardinal Mooney alumnus Mark Stoops’ first Kentucky staff.
But Marrow wonders if things might have turned out differently if he’d stuck with that initial commitment to Huggins and Akron basketball.
“A little bit I regret it because I really believe he would have pushed me,” Marrow said. “People will tell you I was a really good basketball player. I think he would have pushed me, and I really thought I would have played in the NBA because he was a really good coach.”
Instead Huggins ended up just being one of multiple Hall of Fame coaches that would influence Marrow’s career.
He spent one spring with the Youngstown State football team coached by future Ohio State legend Jim Tressel. At Toledo, Marrow played one season for current Alabama coach Nick Saban during Saban’s first season as a college head coach.
“I think God has put me in places with people,” Marrow said. “At the time, I didn’t know. Nick Saban was a young, 33-year-old coach. Bob Huggins, I knew he was going to be a good coach. I’ve just been blessed to be in the position to be recruited by those guys and play in their program.
“I don’t know, maybe that means I’m going to the Hall of Fame one day.”
Marrow insists his basketball skills have not fully evaporated. He jokes he likes to take Kentucky football players’ NIL money in games of “horse” around the UK practice facility.
Those players are usually surprised to see Marrow’s jump shot. If he had followed that jump shot in high school, Marrow might be a key figure in the sports history of the school on the other side of the football field Saturday instead of Kentucky.
“(Huggins) wasn’t happy when I got out of that,” Marrow said. “I really loved Akron. It was a good school, it was away from home. But when I decided to go there, people from Youngstown were like, ‘You can’t do that.’
“It was like me leaving Mark (Stoops) here and going to some other school. Where we’re at, it’s like a little fraternity.”
This story was originally published September 15, 2023 at 6:45 AM.
