Lott leaving lasting impression on Coastal Carolina football program

When the Coastal Carolina football team walks off the field Saturday at Western Carolina, it will mark an ending of sorts for 18 seniors going through their final game as Chanticleers.

That includes a number of three-year starters and key contributors, players who will leave their mark in the program record books for years to come.

And one player whom coach David Bennett feels has left as significant an impression upon the program as anybody.

“I don’t know where you start with him,” Bennett said while talking about senior safety Marcus Lott.

So sitting outside his office Thursday night, Bennett started at the beginning, telling the story of Lott’s official visit to campus during his recruitment.

“It was a day in January. It was probably 60-65 degrees, and people were falling in love with Coastal, and everybody was committing, committing, committing,” Bennett said. “And when he came in, first thing he said was, ‘Coach, I hope you’re not going to ask me to commit today.’ I said, ‘No, that’s up to you. You’ve got to go where you love and where you want to be.’ He said, ‘Well coach, I really like it here, but there’s something I’ve got to do next weekend before I can commit.’”

Lott had told the coaches at Troy University in Alabama that he would visit the school that following weekend, and even though he was ready to decide on Coastal Carolina, he went through with the trip anyway.

“He had given them a verbal in the fall at a game that he would come,” Bennett said. “So he didn’t have his coach call, it wasn’t good enough for him to call. He had to go do it face to face. That was the first sign of Marcus Lott. And if I’m not mistaken, I think we can go into schools three, four times. We used every one of those contacts to go see Marcus Lott. We felt he was a very special young man, and the feeling was right.”

Lott has had a productive collegiate career as a three-year starter with the Chants, first at cornerback and then at safety.

As a senior, he was the team’s co-leading tackler before undergoing wrist surgery last month and has since returned to play with a cast after missing just two games. And for his career, he ranks fourth in program history with 17 pass break-ups, eighth in interceptions (five), sixth in unassisted tackles (111) and ninth in total tackles (183).

But despite those contributions, any conversation about Lott’s impact these past few years will quickly steer away from the field.

“You can’t find a better person, a better human being,” CCU safeties coach Drew Watson said. “Just all the odds he’s overcome and the student he is, the way he works on the field and in the weight room, the way he acts. … He makes that impression on everybody.”

Lott joined the Chants from Union High School in the western part of the state, where he grew up in a challenging family situation. His father had both legs amputated at the knees after being hit by car, and his mother “has severe nerve problems so she forgets a lot and things,” Lott said.

“Growing up, I wasn’t born into a household that I knew could take care of me or supply me with the things I needed,” he said. “God has been with me through this struggle and pretty much just kept me in line and made me grow up early so I knew I just had to be there for myself.”

Both parents are in nursing homes now in Spartanburg, though he remains in contact over the phone.

“It was tough growing up in that environment,” Lott said. “I think I learned more from I guess negative role models than I did positive role models, but I also had a lot of positive role models who were teachers and coaches who kept me on the right track. They saw that I was smart and that I was a good guy I guess and kept me going. It was hard, but I’m here now so I can’t really complain, I guess. God has his plan for everybody.”

As Bennett put it, “It don’t matter where you come from; it’s where you’re going.”

Lott hopes his future path leads him to an opportunity with an NFL team after college. As NFL scouts have come through this season, Bennett has told them all to consider the senior safety and he believes Lott will get a chance to prove himself somewhere.

If not, Lott is looking forward to becoming a middle school teacher and perhaps a principal down the line. He has a 3.91 grade-point average in his time at Coastal and was named this week to the Capital One Academic All-District 4 team, as voted on by the College Sports Information Directors of America. He is the fifth player in program history to receive the honor.

Before he starts figuring out his next step, though, he has one more game to play. Despite having surgery in mid-October to put pins in his wrist, Lott chose to return to the field less than three weeks later and finish out his final season. He’s been limited by the injury – “He says it feels like a knife jabbing in him when he feels those pins. But he keeps playing on,” Bennett said. And he’ll nonetheless be out there again Saturday one last time with the Chants as they take on Western Carolina.

“I just think about how fast it went by,” Lott said. “I remember coming in my freshman year thinking that four years was a long time, and I close my eyes and opened them again, it’s about over with.”

Lott’s time in a Coastal uniform may be done Saturday evening, but the impression he’s made within the program these last four years, well, it seems that will remain well after he’s gone.

“I’d say in the 28 years I’ve been coaching, he’s probably the top guy of everything all rolled into one – a student, an athlete, character, work ethic,” Bennett said. “He’s the measuring stick, and it’s not fair to measure other guys by Marcus because he’s at the top of all categories.”