Poetry Week - Transformation

You'll remember Marcus Lattimore for his outsized talent as a running back and his incredibly bad injury luck. Lattimore was an explosive athlete for the University of South Carolina. He burst onto the scene as a freshman in 2010. In his second game in Columbia, he carried the ball 37 times for 182 yards against Georgia. He finished that season with 1,197 yards and 17 touchdowns on the ground and was named a second-team All-American.

Then, he blew out his knee twice, curtailing both his sophomore and junior seasons. He declared for the draft in 2013, and was selected by the San Francisco 49ers. He never played a down in the NFL. 

Lattimore stayed in the game, though, coaching at the high school level before joining the staff at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR until a few years ago. But it's an entirely different passion we're here to talk about today.

Turns out Marcus Lattimore is a hell of a poet. 

Lattimore teaches creative writing at the Oregon Change Clinic. Jeff Pearlman calls Lattimore's evolution "maybe the greatest second act in American sports history". You can see Pearlman's podcast story on Lattimore at the bottom of this post.

Here's Lattimore himself:

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A post shared by Marcus Lattimore (@marcuslattimore_)

Lattimore was named the winner of the 2024 Oregon Spoken Word Slam, and released a memoir last summer entitled "Scream My Name". 

My last memory of him (until now) was the gruesome knee injury he suffered in 2012 against Tennessee. This updated view is a lot brighter.