One of the most remarkable things about sharks is that an injury doesn’t deter them. A shark can have its dorsal fin torn like a piece of paper and completely heal within months. A shark never stops moving and refuses to give up — even when an injury changes the trajectory of their life.

Marquan Pope, an assistant linebackers coach for Ryan Manalac and a junior at Pitt, relates to Pitt’s linebackers’ shark mentality more than anyone on the team. When Pope arrived on the Pitt campus in the spring of 2022, he was an undersized 17-year-old linebacker from Texas practicing with a team that just won an ACC championship.

“It was more fun than I can possibly put into words,” Pope said. “When I got here and I saw that they were a little bit bigger than me, a little bit stronger, a little bit faster, I was like, ‘Okay, all right, now I gotta prove myself.’”

Before Pitt reached out to Pope after his junior high school football season, he “didn’t know anything about them.” But once he started researching Pitt and head coach Pat Narduzzi’s patented defense, he fell in love. 

“I loved this defense, how fast they played,” Pope said. “I love the ins and outs, learning the whys of everything. The reason why they blitz so much. The reason why we run certain coverages with certain blitz packages. That aspect just fascinated me so much.” 

Pope grew up loving the X’s and O’s of football. His dad, Robert, would assign “Madden” as homework when he was growing up. But it wasn’t just to play the game and have fun — he had to learn the intricacies of why things would happen. 

He would write down every defensive play he ran down on paper, and if Pope’s defense gave up eight or more yards, he had to explain why his defense allowed those yards. And he did that every day for about four years. 

The homework paid off in high school. During Pope’s junior year, he had multiple games in a row with an interception, including two pick-sixes. So, in his senior year, teams wouldn’t dare to throw the ball near him.

“We had several [opposing] coaches after games, before games, say, ‘Oh, are you Marquan’s parents?’ And we’d be like, ‘yes,’” Amy Pope said. “And they would say, ‘I’ve had to change my offense,’ because they would not throw at [Marquan].”

But Pope still wanted to make plays. He didn’t like the idea of tackling people on account of being undersized for the majority of his childhood. When Pope made it to high school, he was moved to safety because the team had too many running backs — but he only cared about interceptions, not the physicality.

It wasn’t until his sophomore year growth spurt, when he was 6’1” and weighed around 190 pounds, that he started to appreciate the physical aspect of football. 

“By my senior year, I loved hitting because teams stopped throwing to me,” Pope said. “Then I was like, ‘OK, well now I just got to hit people.’” 

The now-physical Pope seemed destined to play on Saturdays for Pitt. The three-star recruit from Texas soon had the chance to play in front of 70,622 in Acrisure Stadium against West Virginia as a first-year. 

“It’s amazing to witness your child live out their dreams,” Amy Pope said. “He was playing Division One football. He’s always wanted to. He was like, it’s hard … But he loved it and we loved hearing how excited he was about it.”

But out of nowhere, Amy Pope received an unforgettable phone call. 

“‘Mama, I hit somebody … they’re not sure what’s wrong,’” Amy Pope recalls her son saying. 

Pope suffered a cervical spine injury in a spring practice tackling drill. He got a little too excited as a first-year after doing well in his first rep and lowered his head too much on his second rep.

“Words can’t describe the kind of feeling that was [when] my whole body went limp,” Pope said. “It felt like everything was ringing, but this wasn’t the first time this has happened, so I felt like, ‘Okay. I’ve been through this before. You’re okay.’”

It was the same injury he suffered in his senior year of high school when he had to get rushed to the hospital while making a similar hit in a game. 

“[Manalac] grabbed my hand, and I couldn’t feel my hand, and I was like, ‘Okay, well, that’s not good,’” Pope said. “I’m watching him touch my hand, and I can’t feel it.”

After calming himself down, Pope started to get back on his feet before the athletic trainers rushed over to him.

“I was always taught growing up, get back on your feet, get to the sideline,” Pope said. “Don’t sacrifice everyone else’s time to get better because you are hurt — maybe a little messed up. But I got up, and they ended up taking me to the hospital.”

At the hospital, Pope underwent multiple tests by specialists. They found out a few days later that he had a birth defect in his C3 and C4 vertebrae in his neck. If he had been hit in the right spot with the right amount of pressure, he could have been paralyzed from the neck down. 

It surprised the doctors that he even made it to college football with this birth defect. But this time, Pope told the doctors about how he lost all feeling in his hand — he refused to tell the doctors in his senior year of high school because he wanted to continue to play with his teammates. 

“‘I’m never gonna play again, Mama,’” Pope said to his mom.

The doctors told him he could have had surgery and return to football, but the same result was possible. Pope could transfer to another school, and maybe he would pass their physical.

“I’m a loyalist,” Pope said. “I committed to this school not because of just [football] — yes, [football] played a huge factor in that. But I love this city. I love the people I’ve met here. I love these coaches. They’ve more than just coaches to me, [Randy] Bates, Manalac, Narduzzi. I wouldn’t be where I’m at today if it wasn’t for them.” 

Pope cared about Pitt so much already and understood the risk he was taking, but that didn’t erase the pain of deciding to end his football-playing career.

“I was emotional and wasn’t really thinking about my future, just more thinking about the people I let down,” Pope said. “I had a lot of people looking up to me, waiting to see my success, and I didn’t fulfill it. I felt like a disappointment.”

Pope’s next few months weren’t easy. He had dreams of playing in the NFL and hearing his name get called on Draft Day. But one injury, one improper tackle, one birth defect changed everything.

“I went through a tough, tough time. Those next three or four months were really tough mentally,” Pope said. “I’m not playing football anymore. I’m 18 hours away from my family. I have a couple of friends, but now they’re talking about going to practice and what they did at practice, and I’m kind of sitting at home in a neck brace.” 

It would have been impossible to get through this time alone. Pope needed support, and it was there for him. He leaned into his faith, which he said “saved his life.” Narduzzi and Manalac texted him “almost every other day,” checking where his head was at and acting as “father figures.” 

Pope had teammates, Isaiah Montgomery and Ryland Gandy, checking in on him as a friend rather than a player, which was something he “needed.” And he, of course, had his family with him every step of the way.

“There were tears shed, and anger — why me? Why this? But we were just there as a family,” Amy Pope said. “We’ve always been a very close family, and so I think just between our faith and each other, it helped. It helped [us] get through.”

Pope’s tenure with the Pitt football team didn’t end after his career-ending injury. Narduzzi and the program promised to honor Pope’s football scholarship and offered him the opportunity to work as one of Manalac’s assistant linebacker coaches. 

Pope accepted, but he wasn’t immediately ready to put his all into coaching for Pitt football.

“When I tried to start this coaching thing, I was kind of one foot in, one foot out, and not sure what I wanted to do — if this was really for me,” Pope said. “I couldn’t get over the fact that I stopped playing.” 

It wasn’t until the 2022 Sun Bowl that Pope knew coaching was for him. 

“I had a couple guys come up to me and thank me for coming with the same energy every day of practice and helping them out when they needed it,” Pope said. “That’s when I kind of was like, ‘Yeah, I’m in the right business. This is exactly what I want to do.’”

The energy that Pope brought throughout his first-year season was something he learned from Manalac. Every day, no matter what, Manalac “brings the juice.” It’s a quality that Pope wants to emulate as a coach. 

Throughout the 2022 season, when Pope was feeling down about not playing, Manalac would go up to him and make sure Pope walked away with a smile. These moments kept Pope’s love for the game alive and taught him how important it is to have relationships with players. 

Although Pope is only 20, he doesn’t feel less respected even when he talks to players who are four years older than him — they trust him just like any other coach.

“One of my strengths is my ability to talk to the players and them not [feeling] like I’m sitting there to judge or criticize or antagonize or anything of the such,” Pope said. “I’m just there because [I] want them to be great, and if that means we have to have a little heated argument about it, so be it. But we both, at the end of the day, know because of our relationship, that I want the best for him.”

But on gamedays, when the sharks are intercepting Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord four separate times or are in an emotional battle with West Virginia, he tries to act as a calming presence on the sideline. It helps players like linebacker Brandon George, who is four years older than him.

“Every once in a while, if I got real heated, he’d be like, ‘Yo, just take a deep breath. Calm down,’” George said. “He was always that quieting voice, when everybody else [was] freaking out.” 

Settling down emotional players like George is a quality that is “hard to teach,” according to George. But the support that Pope brings isn’t limited to game days — he also excels during the week when preparing for games, including watching countless hours of film to make sure the team is as prepared as possible for every game. 

“Film is a cheat sheet — it is the answer key to a test, which your test is on Saturdays in college,” Pope said. “You just gotta learn it and know it, memorize it.” 

During linebacker Jeremiah Marcelin’s first year, he texted Pope all the time and asked about things he could do better, questions that Pope would almost always have the answers to. 

Pope also uses a familiar trick from his dad when helping his teammates dissect plays. He logs onto his PlayStation 5 and tells his teammates to join him on EA Sports College Football 25. Then, he runs multiple defensive coverages against his teammates or uses certain route concepts against them. 

His teammates have to do exactly what Pope did growing up. They have to tell him why certain coverages don’t work, where to attack, and they break it down from there. 

Pope may not have the opportunity to go to “war” with his teammates while he feels his “heart pumping out of his chest,” but he’s still a shark, just like George and other Pitt linebackers. 

Pope’s dream isn’t the same one he had when he arrived on campus in 2022, but paths through life are meant to change — even sharks don’t attack their prey using the same path every time. 

“I want to help student-athletes. I want to help kids get to their dreams,” Pope said. “My dream was to be in the green room on draft night and be playing under the big lights in the NFL. But now it’s turned into I want to see as many people as I come in contact with go to the NFL and live their dreams.”

Pope could have easily lost his love of football after his injury — his dreams were taken after one lowering of the head. But that is not what sharks do.

“A lot of people would have kind of packed it in, and said, ‘you know what, I’m done with football, I can’t be around it,’ just because it brings back that sad undertone,” George said. “But Marquan didn’t do any of that. Marquan said, ‘You know what I’m gonna contribute however I can, and I’m gonna make football work for me.’”