Born and bred in the Elk Grove area of Northern California, Riley’s athletic aptitude flashed its teeth early, driving him to MVP status of Elk Grove High School’s championship football team for an unprecedented 4 year stretch.

This same aptitude would go on to propel Riley to a college career at Fresno State University- a career that would find its freshman year roots in redshirting, and would ultimately culminate in Riley being named the Western Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year as a senior.

Strength and agility, two of the foremost physical elements laced throughout his composition as a player, are resonant themes in his personal philosophy- one that has consistently driven him to overcome obstacles and lead teams.

As President of Fresno State’s Kappa Alpha Psi chapter, Riley graduated with his degree in Communications in 2007, actualizing his dream of being the first college graduate in his family. His sights then pivoted to a loftier dream, one that so many wide eyed boys turned high school football heroes seem to know by heart- joining the NFL.

During his NFL tenure with the St. Louis Rams, Chicago Bears, and Green Bay Packers, Marcus continued to foster his perspective not only on the strategic elements of the game, but also on the community driven ones- the commonality of one team’s laser-focused purpose to outperform the opposition, to be better tomorrow than they were today. It was this outlook that led to Riley’s involvement in community development by way of his association with Elk Grove’s Police Activities League, as well as his biggest labor of love- his Linebacker Academy. An answer to the overabundance of camps focused solely on developing quarterbacks, Riley’s academy gives him a chance to share lessons from years dedicated to art of football.

Riley has since completed graduate school as an Assistant Coach (GA) at Southern Methodist University, and is now focusing his efforts on his academy and coaching full time. Nowadays, for the new dad who counts his own father as a personal hero, the driving stimulus is no longer limited to being a great athlete- it is instead on using those athletic principles to paint the bigger picture, a picture of a man focused on character and community, and on being better today than yesterday.