When Mark Hudspeth left his family's home in Louisville to play football at Delta State, it took him a while to find out what he wanted to pursue for a degree in college. Hudspeth's parents tried to help him make a decision.

"He was real artistic," Diane Hudspeth said. "When he was a kid he could just design and build things. He liked that. He could draw real well, in grammar school he won some art contests. We were trying to decide what would be good for him to go into when he went to Delta State. I thought he might be good in for him to go into when he went to Delta State. I thought he might be good in architecture or something like that.

"Then, we had a family business, so we thought what about accounting? I think he took an accounting course or something, and he kind of got started into business and he called home and said, ‘Mom, I’d rather be in prison than have to stay behind a desk.'"

What Hudspeth learned during this time was that the thing he really wanted to do was coach, and his parents were supportive of that decision. What they do was coach, and his parents were supportive of that decision. What they didn't know was how that ability to "design and build things" would help him out in that coaching profession.