Former college and professional football coach Marc Trestman said a positive attitude, personal confidence and being involved in the lives of other people are traits that have been helpful to him throughout his career during a visit with Professor Steve Friedland’s Evidence class Sept. 4.
“The most important word in anybody’s vocabulary should be demeanor,” said Trestman, who earned a law degree from the University of Miami before a 23-year coaching career spent mostly in the National Football League. “People are going to judge you when you walk into a room on how you carry yourself.”
Trestman’s visit was part of the National Mentors Program with Elon’s Center for Engaged Learning in the Law (CELL). In this new program, mentors work with small groups of students to enhance their work in law school and later as practicing attorneys.
Trestman was offensive coordinator with the Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders. He has coached in a Super Bowl and two AFC championship games. As a quarterbacks coach in the NFL, Trestman has worked with notable quarterbacks Steve Young, Jake Plummer and Rich Gannon.
As a coach, he said he did not begin to truly grow in the profession until he understood that coaching was more than “just seeing the players as chess pieces and putting them in the right position to win. You have to get to know them, understand them, ask them about their families and mean it. When I learned (coaching) was really about relationships, that’s when I started to get it.”
There are no coincidences in life, Trestman said, noting that the contacts he made in various coaching jobs helped him land other jobs later on. “Don’t live in a box. Reach out and embrace anybody who comes into your life, because you never know where it will lead.”
Trestman began his coaching career at the University of Miami, coaching star quarterbacks Bernie Kosar and Vinnie Testaverde as the Hurricanes won the 1983 national championship and played in the 1984 Fiesta Bowl. He also spent the 2005 and 2006 seasons as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at NC State University. Trestman currently writes a weekly scouting column for SI.com and is doing consulting work with the New Orleans Saints.
Leaders in the law, business and a variety of other fields will visit the Elon law school as part of the National Mentors Program. Future visitors include the Honorable Mozelle Thompson, former deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury who later served as the second African American commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, and San Diego attorney Michael Shames, director of the Utility Consumer Action Network and author of a book, “The World’s Greatest Consumer.”