Eagles' Marsh: ‘It was the worst 3 months of my life'

Its didnt take Curtis Marsh long to realize he had made a mistake. A terrible mistake.

He was 18 years old. He was 3,000 miles from home. And he was all alone.

It was the worst three months of my life, Marsh said.

Marsh, 24, is starting his second season with the Eagles after getting a fair amount of playing time late last year as a rookie third-round pick. Marsh became the Eagles top backup outside cornerback this off-season when the Eagles traded Asante Samuel to the Falcons.

Things are going well for Marsh these days, but not that long ago, he found himself a virtual prisoner at a military prep school in Rhode Island. And the more vocal he became about his unhappiness, the worse things got.

All he wanted was to play football. It was a lot harder than he expected.

I didnt play varsity as a high school sophomore and didnt really get noticed until I was a senior, Marsh said after a recent OTA practice at the NovaCare Complex. By the time I got my tapes out there, there were just no offers left for me. It was very frustrating.

The University of Nevada actually offered me a scholarship but some other guy who was going somewhere else changed his mind and decided he wanted to go there and they took away my offer, so Im sitting at home with nothing.

My only other offer was from the Naval Academy. I wanted to play football so bad I just accepted it without really knowing what I was doing and if it was really what I wanted to do.

Marsh actually speaks highly of the Naval Academy.

Its a great institution, he said. If you go there, youre set for life. It just wasnt for me.

Marsh was assigned to the Naval Academy Prep School in Newport, R.I., and it didnt take long for him to realize hed made a huge mistake.

I just wanted to play football he said. I got there, man, it was a crazy experience. It wasnt what I expected.

Marsh said when he arrived on the military base that houses Navy Prep, he learned he wasnt allowed to have any outside contact with anybody. No phone calls to mom back home in Simi Valley, Calif. No emails. No texting. No computers. No Facebook.

Im up there thinking, What am I doing? he said. Then I heard some of the guys on the football team saying that even if you were good enough to go to the NFL, they wouldnt let you go -- you had to do two years and then five to seven years of reserves. I just felt like if I stayed there I wasnt going to get the full opportunity to chase my dream.

Life at Newport was a mind-blowing adjustment for Marsh.

He knew military life would be based on discipline. He knew his routine would be different than at home.

But he wasnt prepared for this.

Waking up at 4:30 a.m. Spending most of the day marching as a group around the base. Completely isolated from with the outside world.

Marsh is quick to note that it was a perfect life for a lot of his classmates. It was just the worst thing possible for him.

It was pretty crazy, he said. A pretty crazy state of mind you had to be in. I was pretty shocked and freaked out by it. I couldnt talk to anybody about it for a month.

Marsh went to Navy because he felt it was his only choice. And he left Navy because he felt that was his only choice.

I wanted to play football so bad, I just kind of accepted it without really knowing if that was what I wanted to do for sure, he said. So I got there, I mean, it was a crazy experience. Real severe home sickness, and Im just up there thinking, What am I doing?

Marsh passed the time by reading voraciously. He read books about history, about music, about everything.

One book, an autobiography by former Broncos all-pro running back Terrell Davis, he read over and over.

I was doing a lot of thinking about where I wanted to be in life, he said. Terrell Davis, I read his autobiography like 50 times. I just kept reading it looking for things to inspire me.

Late that fall, Marsh formally requested his DoR -- Drop on Request -- but he said he kept hearing that there was a chance it would be denied and he wouldnt be able to leave.

He had made a binding military commitment, and the process to un-enlist is not an easy one.

They basically made it seem like I couldnt leave if I wanted to, he said. That was really scary. That was really freaking me out. I could be stuck here. If you just leave, youre AWOL, and you could go to the brig until your enlistments over.

Finally, his request was approved. But his ordeal wasnt over. Once it was clear he would be leaving Newport, his coaches really started making things miserable for him.

Football had actually been going well. He was an option running back, hadnt moved to D-back yet, and his numbers were good.

But once his intentions became clear, everything changed. His playing time diminished and he became an outcast, even more isolated.

Once they approved my DoR, it takes a couple weeks to turn me back into a civilian, so I had to stay there, he said. The football coach was really pissed off at me. He told me, Youll never play again, said that, If you were good enough then youd have gotten offers out of high school.

He made me pick up all the sleds and all the bags while they were practicing to try and humiliate me. So the team is practicing, Im cleaning off the track, scrubbing the locker room, cleaning bathrooms. It was tough. I just did it. I knew Id be out of there soon.

Marsh finally got home to Southern California just before Thanksgiving. He was broke, didnt have a job, still didnt have any offers. He registered for classes at Moorpark Junior College in Simi Valley, just north of L.A., determined to prove his worth on the JUCO level.

Finally, a few days before Christmas, Utah State called out of the blue and offered him a full ride. He went to Logan to visit, brought all his stuff, and never left.

He was still playing running back. He ran for 487 yards with a 3.9 average and caught 28 passes for 210 yards his first two years at Utah State, but after the 2008 season, he approached new coach Gary Andersen and, with a roster full of talented tailbacks but light on corners, asked to move to corner.

We were stacked at running back, he said. Two of our running backs just got drafted this year Robert Turbin in the fourth round, Michael Smith in the seventh round. I knew it was my best route to the NFL, and I also knew it was best for the team, so it was best for everybody.

Two outstanding years later, the Eagles drafted him in the third round, and now, with Asante Samuel gone, he finds himself the top outside backup cornerback, behind Nnamdi Asomugha and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie.

Its going well, he said. I know my role is going to be a lot bigger this year, and Ill be ready.

It was unfortunate we didnt have these OTAs last year. This is just a chance for the coaches to see you, to start trusting you early, and this would have been an opportunity for me to show them earlier what I can do. But last year was a good year for me, sitting back and learning three of the best corners in the NFL.

A great opportunity, very rare, and a lot of people dont get that, so I just feel so lucky to have had last year to learn as much as I did.

Marsh took an unusual route to the NFL, but it worked out. He made it work out.

Everything I went through, it definitely made me a stronger person, he said. When I wanted to leave Navy Prep, my mom told me, I cant believe youre going to do this, because we didnt have any money, and me getting a scholarship and getting an Ivy League education and she thought I was throwing it all away.

My mom did not want that at all. Nobody in my family supported me. But I was like, Look, I have to leave. I felt like it was the first decision I ever made where I had to not listen to anybody and do what I thought was right. It was one of the hardest things Ive ever had to do.

Going home and having to look my mom in the face every day, I barely had any money, I didnt know what my future was. But I knew what I wanted to do. And nothing was going to stop me.

E-mail Reuben Frank at rfrank@comcastsportsnet.com.