Here’s how former Baylor star Mark Vital is helping K-State as a grad assistant
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Mark Vital left railroad work to join K-State as a graduate assistant.
- He leverages NCAA title and NFL experience to mentor K-State players daily.
- Vital emphasizes coachability, relentlessness and rebounding in player development.
The average sports fan most likely remembers Mark Vital for one of the following two reasons.
1. He was an All-Big 12 basketball star at Baylor when the Bears won a national championship in 2021.
2. He gave football a try after college and turned out to be so athletic that the Kansas City Chiefs signed him to their practice squad as a tight end. He lasted two seasons on an NFL roster.
But Vital was doing something else entirely when Jerome Tang offered him a job as a graduate assistant with the Kansas State men’s basketball team this year. Vital was completely out of sports when that happened. The 6-foot-5 bruiser of an athlete had traded in his jerseys for blue-collar clothes.
“I was in the railroad business,” Vital said. “I was a train conductor and then from there I was an engineer. I was doing every job you could think of, down to building a train from scratch. I worked that job for a few months, because I always wanted to work a job like that. My dad always talked about hard work. But let me tell you right now, that was on a different level. It was tough.”
So tough, it turned out, that Vital was eager to listen when Tang reached out.
Tang had tried to hire Vital to his K-State staff in the past, but Vital was in no rush to enter the coaching business. A few months in the real world changed his outlook.
“I love basketball,” Vital said. “That experience made me love it even more, to a point where I wanted to do this. Coach Tang had been asking me for years, but I really just wanted to figure out my life and take a step away from basketball. I have a beautiful daughter now. That was one of the reasons I stepped away. But that job right there opened my eyes. I wanted to get back to basketball.”
Vital is back. But now he’s wearing purple instead of green. He still looks like he can average 5.6 points and 6.7 rebounds per game for a Big 12 team, just like he did as a senior with the Bears. But he only suits up for the occasional practice session.
These days, he supports Tang and the Wildcats mostly from the bench. But he has a wealth of knowledge to share.
So much so, that Baylor coach Scott Drew was jealous when he heard Vital was moving to Manhattan.
“He left his mark as a defender and a rebounder,” Drew said. “Everyone in the Big 12 still knows him and respects him. He was a great teammate and a great leader for us. He has all the characteristics to be a great coach. I have no doubt that he is going to be really successful. He should add value instantaneously. He’s been there and he’s done that. Players want to learn from someone like that.”
Tang was an assistant coach at Baylor when Vital and the Bears won their national championship in 2021.
That made Vital an easy choice for a GA role at K-State.
The Wildcats won 26 games and reached the Elite Eight when former K-State basketball player Curtis Kelly shared his expertise in the same role. Tang wanted to get another former player on staff. Vital was his first choice.
“Having someone,” Tang said, “who is so close to the guys, age wise, and just recently experienced winning the Big 12 championship and the national championship and now sees it differently ... it goes a long way. Our guys listen to him.”
Vital has only helped the Wildcats in one game thus far, but he already feels at home at Bramlage Coliseum. He can even see a future for himself in coaching. He is eager to work his way up the ladder. His ultimate goal is to win a national championship just like Drew did at his alma mater.
He is so confident in himself that he says he is glad to share his ambitions now publicly so he can look back in 10 years and see how much progress he has made.
He never made an NBA roster, and he wasn’t able to overtake Travis Kelce on the depth chart in Kansas City. He didn’t like working in railroads, either. Maybe this is his true calling.
For now, though, he is just trying to help K-State win a few extra games this season by using the same mindset that helped him make so many big plays at Baylor.
“I try to teach these guys as much as I can from my mistakes,” Vital said. “I felt like I could have been more coachable. I try to teach them to be more coachable. I try to teach them to be very relentless. You’re going to have good games, and you’re going to have bad games. But you can always be relentless.”