SMU News
Originally Posted: May 12, 2016
DALLAS (SMU) – When Codey Marshall was just a kid from Garland, he enjoyed watching the SMU football team vigorously chasing its opponents across the field at old Ownby Stadium.
He had no idea then the grand journey life held in store, or that it would return him to the Hilltop.
Three decades later, Marshall, 36, is preparing to enter another SMU athletic venue – Moody Coliseum, all decked out for spring commencement. He will be in a cap and gown, celebrating a hard-earned markets and culture degree and a life come full circle after a long, daring, and unconventional story.
“I’m a veteran of the Marine Corps and I’m a father,” says Marshall. He has three children now, and was only 22-years old when he deployed to Iraq in 2002. But he concedes that coming back to school made him nervous.
“You’re scared. You’re trying to figure it out. You wonder, ‘Can I still do this?’” But education was his therapy, Marshall says.
“It was my reintegration to society. It gave me something and helped me along in my process. I had the most wonderful advisors and professors that anyone could ever ask for at Dedman College and that really made this as smooth a process as it could be.”
Marshal knows where he’s going next. The outgoing vice president of U.S. MilVets of SMU, Marshall recently accepted a position with Veterans Coalition of North Texas, a non-profit organization he described as a “gap-filler” that coordinates the region’s various veteran services to make sure no veteran is forgotten.
“I feel it is my job to give back wherever I can,” says Marshall, who will continue his SMU education in the Cox Executive MBA program this fall. “
Looking back on his time at SMU, he says, “It’s been insane – It’s been fun. But I love the fact that my children can see what I’m doing and appreciate what I’m doing. If you put the time in, it works.” READ MORE
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