Ryan Brennecke / The BulletinOregon Stateís Marcus Greaves runs off the field following a practice last week at Summit High School in Bend. The Crook County High product is a walk-on running back with the Beavers.

It has been a long road back to football for Prineville’s Marcus Greaves.

Greaves, who played at Crook County High School, is a walk-on this year at Oregon State, currently well down the depth chart at running back — but that is just fine with him.

“There’s been a lot of ups and downs, especially just being a walk-on,” Greaves said while the Beavers were in Bend for a week of practices to open the 2016 season. “It’s not even just preparing yourself for football, it’s preparing yourself for life.

“The way I look at it, you can get whatever you want if you work hard. It’s going to be tough, but it’s going to be worth it.”

Just being on the field with the Beavers, after dealing with an ACL injury that kept him off the field last season, is a dream come true.

“I’m just trying to help the team and do whatever I can,” the 6-foot, 209-pound Greaves said. “I’m not too worried about me, me, me … I just want to win, whatever that takes.

“If I’m getting a lot of carries I’ll do that, or if it takes me going onto special teams I’ll do that. Whatever position it puts me in, I’m OK with it.”

Greaves was a running back and outside linebacker for the Crook County Cowboys, playing alongside his brother Alex. He was a two-time All-Intermountain Conference first-team selection.

The Cowboys advanced to the Class 4A state play-in round in his senior year (2012-13), but Greaves’ high school career came to an unhappy ending.

“It was a close game against our rivals (Madras),” Greaves, 20, recalled. “I got hurt and had to miss the rest of the game … I was pretty devastated.

“That’s where my older brother came in, he really helped me to keep my head up. Between my mom and my brother, they were everything I needed in order for me to get where I am now.”

Greaves has always known he wanted to be a Beaver, even though he went to Western Oregon out of high school.

He turned out for football at Western but had a change of heart and left the team in time to preserve his eligibility to play at Oregon State.

“I found it was in my best interest just to wait,” he said. “I knew I didn’t want to waste any eligibility … I just thought I should train and head up to Corvallis, because I really wanted to play for Oregon State.”

A trip to Reser Stadium for a game in 2013 further convinced him that is where he wanted to play.

“I went to the Stanford game in Corvallis … I was watching and I thought, ‘Man, this is really what I want to do,’” he said.

“I knew some of the guys before, like (Oregon State wide receiver) Jordan Villamen. I talked to Jordan a lot and after talking with him, I knew I wanted to be part of this family.”

Greaves transferred from Western Oregon after his freshman year, and he saw his first action as a walk-on with the Beavers’ practice squad in 2014.

The ACL injury during the 2015 spring game (his redshirt sophomore year) kept him sidelined last year.

Healthy this season, Greaves and his family are footing the bill for school as he tries to earn a scholarship with the team.

“The ultimate goal is to get on scholarship,” he said. “I know the coaches will put me in the right spot to be successful at what I do.”

Paying for school, while devoting so much time to the team, can be difficult at times, Greaves said. But he believes it is worth it to live his dream of playing NCAA Division I football.

“As a walk-on, a lot of guys get frustrated,” Greaves said. “It’s tough sometimes paying your way through everything, but talking to my mom, my brother, these coaches, they make it a lot easier for me.

“I know personally that whatever happens, it happens for a reason. I can’t be frustrated, because I love the game too much to be frustrated.”

But he has larger goals for the team and for himself as the Beavers kick off coach Gary Andersen’s second year at Oregon State.

“I’m playing for the love of the game,” Greaves said. “Being Division I is already a dream, but it’s not something I can hang my hat on. I know that we as a team and me as an individual, we haven’t proved anything yet.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7868, 
kduke@bendbulletin.com.

First up

Oregon St. 
at Minnesota

When: 6 p.m. Sept. 1 TV: Big Ten