The best way to overcome a bad situation — Brennan Marion has learned and then taught — is to go through bad situations.

It is a method Marion, the University of Hawaii football team’s new receivers coach, has embraced as a record-setting pass catcher and influential instructor.

“My first year in junior college, they called me ‘50-50’ because I didn’t catch the ball great,” Marion recalled. “What I started to do was I would throw towels up and catch them to train my eyes. Then I would go to tennis balls, then to weighted balls, then to footballs. The reason a guy can’t catch well is not because of his hands but because he has bad eyes. He doesn’t see the ball. You pick certain points on the ball to focus on when you catch it.”

After that, Marion said, “once you’re a better pass catcher, then you have to work on being in bad positions, bad body positions, and still catching the ball. … How do I catch it with a defender draped on me? Being in those bad positions, with a guy face-guarding me or a guy tackling me, how do I still catch the ball? You put those guys in awkward positions (in practice). When it happens in a game, you’re not going, ‘catch the ball.’ We actually practice that.”

Marion said he expects to employ similar drills when the Warriors open training camp. The NCAA announced a proposed schedule that — pending state government and UH guidelines — would allow the Warriors to open camp by the end of July.

The Warriors return several receivers (Jared Smart, Kumoku Noa, Lincoln Victor), reinstated slotback Melquise Stovall, and added several pass-catching recruits, including North Texas transfer Rico Bussey Jr. Each is expected to warm to Marion’s fiery work ethic.

“The thing that has driven me is I’ve always been super competitive,” Marion said. “I was the youngest in my family. My brother and all the people I grew up with six, seven years older than me. I was trying to keep up with them.”

When he was 9, he began working for his mother’s floral business. His mother would buy roses from a wholesaler, then resell them at events or outside nightclubs. “I arranged the flowers with her,” Marion said. “I made bouquets. Took the thorns off the roses. … I was out there doing sales. ‘Hey, man, buy your girlfriend a flower?’ I was that kid.”

Marion said that workmanlike approach has “always been my life story. I’ve always been working hard and grinding for things. I teach guys that mind-set. You can have fun and all that, but the work is what’s fun. That’s what you’ll miss. It’s always about the work.”

Marion was born in Virginia, but grew up in Greensburg, Pa., which is part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area.

As a Pittsburgh youth, Marion said, “you have to play football. You’re not even like a human being if you don’t play football. Football is very serious. Automatically you’re expected to win and be competitive in football because that’s our culture with the Steelers and seeing the championships and success they had. From a very early age, you had the pressure of ‘you’ve got to be a football dude.’ For me, a person, who’s loved football since he was 5 years old, (Pittsburgh) was great for me.”

Despite averaging 17.4 yards per catch as a Greensburg-Salem High senior, Marion received tepid interest from Division I teams. He opted to move to California where he attended Foothill College as a halfback and tight end, and then to De Anza College, where he became a full-time receiver. After that, Tulsa offered a recruiting trip.

“I borrowed a suit and tie from one of my (De Anza) coaches, and I went there on a ‘business’ trip,” Marion said. “Coach (Todd) Graham gave me an opportunity, and the rest is history.”

In 2007, his first season with Tulsa, Marion made history, catching 39 passes for 1,244 and 11 touchdowns. His per-catch average of 31.9 yards set an FBS record.

“It was like everything they told me would happen did happen,” Marion said. “Coach Graham has always been a guy who’s spoken victory. He demands greatness out of you. Those things happened to fruition.”

The next season, in the final game of his NCAA career, Marion suffered an injury to his left knee. Marion attended but did not participate in drills at the 2009 NFL Scouting Combine. He went from being a projected draft pick to not being selected at all. He signed a free-agent deal with the Miami Dolphins, but re-injured the left ACL in training camp and spent the 2009 season on the reserve list.

“I always tell people, I got to the show, I just didn’t get to dance,” Marion said of his lone NFL season. “That was a good experience. It got my family out of the red and out of a bad situation. I come from low income, Section 8, the projects. I was able to get my mom out of that situation and change our life financially.”

It also opened the way for a productive coaching career. In his first game as Howard’s offensive coordinator in 2017, the Bison of the FCS upset UNLV, 43-40. While there was no official line, Westgate Las Vegas Resort and Casino said it was the largest victory against the spread. ESPN reported offshore books listed the odds at up to 600 to 1, which would turn a $100 bet into a $60,000 payout.

“It was like all your faith and hard work paying off,” Marion said.

After following head coach Mike London from Howard to William &Mary, Marion received — and accepted — an offer to join Graham, who was hired as UH’s head coach in January.

“Anytime I can get around TG as a full-time coach, I definitely want to do that,” Marion said.