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Inside The Huskies

Once a UW Rebel, It's Coach Marcus Peters Now

The former Huskies and NFL cornerback has been hired to lead his high school team.
Dan Raley|
Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marcus Peters warms up prior to an AFC Divisional Round game against the Buffalo Bills in 2021.
Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marcus Peters warms up prior to an AFC Divisional Round game against the Buffalo Bills in 2021. | Rich Barnes-Imagn Images

He wasn't always the most coachable player, getting tossed off the 2014 University of Washington football team for clashing with the staff, but now Marcus Peters is a coach himself.

On Friday, it was revealed that Peters, the highly decorated former Huskies and NFL cornerback, has been hired as the football coach for McClymonds High School, his alma mater in Oakland, California.

Retired as a pro football player for three years, he'll replace his father, Michael Peters, who spent more than three decades coaching football at the school, which was also his alma mater, including the past 13 seasons as the head coach.

Huskies corner back Marcus Peters (21) leads the rest of the team onto the field to face the Stanford Cardinal in 2021.
Huskies corner back Marcus Peters (21) leads the rest of the team onto the field to face the Stanford Cardinal in 2021. | Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images

The elder Peters stepped away with a 142-23 coaching record for what he called "Mack Football" that included four state, six regional and 11 league championships.

Waiting in the wings, Marcus Peters was a volunteer assistant coach answering to his dad during the 2025 season.

Peters is remembered in Montlake as a talented Steve Sarkisian recruit who turned himself into touted NFL prospect but didn't get along with Chris Petersen's staff and couldn't finish his time at the UW in an agreeable manner.

Following the coaching change to Petersen, the temperamental Peters was continually at odds with the next staff.

As a junior in 2014, he drew a one-game suspension following the opener after arguing with an assistant coach, presumably Jimmy Lake, during a 59-52 victory over Eastern Washington in which the secondary was shredded.

That suspension turned into a late-season dismissal with five games to go when he continued his push-back with Petersen's staff.

However, the NFL was a good place for Peters, somewhere to rebound in a big way, a football level for him to flourish at in a big way.

In 2015, he was the 18th overall pick to the Kansas City Chiefs who would later play for the Los Angeles Rams, the Baltimore Ravens and the Las Vegas Raiders.

Appearing in 116 NFL games and starting all but one, he would intercept 33 passes and return seven of them for touchdowns in a nine-year career. He would score an eighth TD on a fumble return. He had 97 pass break-ups, including 46 in his first two pro seasons.

In recent years, Peters mended all fences with the Huskies by returning with family members and attending a practice conducted by Kalen DeBoer's coaching staff, engaging with new and old faces.

So now he's coach Peters, ready to make players answer to him at McClymonds High and do whatever it takes to keep the program a winner.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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