Mark Titus Went From Student Manager To Being On Scholarship For Basketball At Ohio State
On today's Pardon My Take... MARK TITUS! The longtime recurring guest of the show joined Mr. Cat and Mr. Commenter on today's show to discuss a bunch of topics including playoff basketball, creating a sports media basketball team, and much more. In case you didn't know, Titus is a former basketball player at The Ohio State University. But his path to getting that title is very unique. I'll let the guys take it away...
Mr. Commenter: So, you got a scholarship initially to go there, like right out of high school?
Mark Titus: No, I went to be a manager, then I quit that because I was lied to about what being a manager was.
Mr. Cat: Why, what was being a manager?
Mark Titus: I was told I was like going to be a practice player by John Gross, who is the head coach at Akron now. He was an assistant.
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Mr. Cat: Good tourney run, Illinois.
Mark Titus: Yup. He told me, he's like, "If you're a manager, you'll be able to practice with the guys." He's like, "You don't have to come in every day, but when you're here, you know, you'll have your own scout team." And I was like, "That sounds cool. I don't have to be fully committed, because I understand how much time commitment this is." So, I was like, "I'll be a normal student, but three days a wee, I'll come practice with Division I players, who happen to be some of my friends. That's a great setup, I'll come do that." And on day one, they had me wiping up Greg's [Oden] sweat, and filling up water bottles and filming practice. And I was so shitty about it that I quit, and then they asked me to come back because they didn't have enough guys to do 5-on-5.
Mr. Cat: Wow!
Mark Titus: That's how I got on the team. And then, they didn't have, they weren't using all the scholarships. You get like 13 scholarships and we only had like 11 guys on scholarships. So they just said, "Do you want one?" And I was like, "Yeah." So, I went from normal student at Ohio State to five weeks later, I was on scholarship for what ended up being a Final Four basketball team.
Mr. Cat: I love that that's how you got your scholarship, too. They're like, Thad Matta was like, looked under the couch, he was like, "Oh yeah, we got another one here. Alright, you take it."
Mr. Commenter: You have to wonder how many people have, like, quit their student manager job on the first day and tried to follow that. Or, like the other way around, how many people just accepted the manager job on the first day, even though it wasn't what they wanted? And maybe that's the next Jordan, but they didn't have the balls like you to stand up and be like, "No, I'm better than this."
Mark Titus: Yeah, that's a great "What If?"
What a five-week stretch right there for Mark Titus in Columbus. In the span of just more than a month, he goes from student to scholarship player on a team that goes to the Final Four. And now? He is one of the top college basketball podcasters out there, as the one of the hosts of Titus & Tate. Very cool.