When Marcus Quirk was nine years old, he was first introduced to basketball. It was just a hoop tied up on a tree at his family’s home in Brunei. His father worked in the oil industry, and Brunei was the third country he would call home.
What he never could have imagined was how that hoop and the orange ball he became addicted to throwing through the net would take him on a worldwide journey he’s still on today.
Scotland. Oman. Brunei. England. America. Taiwan.
Quirk’s story exemplifies a person doing whatever it takes to achieve their dreams, even if those aspirations take you to a small town of 4,500 people in the middle of the cornfields of Iowa.
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Donell Williams worked with Mike Quirk, Marcus’s father, at Shell Petroleum. Williams was originally from New Orleans, but was in Brunei for an expatriate assignment. Basketball, a significant part of Williams’s life, had followed him from his days as a collegiate basketball player in America, where he played for Southeastern Louisiana University. Basketball wasn’t very popular in Brunei, but Williams found a group of coworkers to play with every Wednesday night.
One of those Wednesday nights, Williams stepped onto the court with the nine other guys and realized they would have to kick off a group of kids to play full court. He didn’t want to do that. He wanted the kids to share the same passion he had. In an effort to spread his love, Williams decided to start a couple of practices with the kids to teach them the fundamentals of basketball.
One wiry 10-year-old boy caught Williams’s attention – Marcus Quirk, in his early stages of falling in love with the sport.
“[Quirk] loved to shoot the ball. The further, the better,” recalled Williams, “He had a range you wouldn’t believe for a younger kid. He would probably miss more than he made, but it was about honing his skills.”
Quirk quickly developed his game in practice sessions. Williams saw Quirk’s limitless potential and love for the game, so he took him along to his pickup basketball games with other adults.
There was Quirk, running up and down the court, competing against men twice his size and developing skills on both sides of play.
“If he wanted to shoot the ball, then he would have had to shake the man or get them off him to give himself the opportunity to score,” said Williams, “It didn’t take him long to figure out, and the rest is history.”
As Quirk got older and continued developing his game, he took over the pickup games and practice sessions.
Williams’s overseas assignment ended in May 2012. Quirk’s pickup basketball games ended, but he was ready for the next step of his journey.
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At age 13, it became clear Quirk was special. His hoop tied to the tree was no more, as he upgraded to a portable basketball hoop. The backboard was made of foggy plastic instead of glass. It stood in the Quirks’ driveway in front of their single-level home, the rim ten feet off the ground. A variety of bushes enclosed the driveway—a private court for Quirk.
Quirk stood on the opposite side of the driveway. His orange hat kept his hair out of his eyes but clashed with his red shirt. He dribbled the red, yellow, and blue-striped ball as he began to stride toward the basket in his black flip-flops. After three dribbles with his right hand, he attacked the basket, jumping off his left foot and dunking with authority, shaking the black rim and backboard.
His exceptional ability and height allowed him to outgrow the game of basketball in Brunei.
He needed another challenge.
Quirk, yearning for more basketball, researched secondary school academies in the UK where he could attend school and focus on basketball. Since the family left the UK after he was born, he had only been back to the UK for a couple of holidays and a basketball camp. At 16 years old, Quirk traveled 7,000 miles from Brunei to Leicester City, England. He would attend Charnwood College for his secondary school years and play basketball for the school’s team, the Charnwood Riders.
“I was the biggest fish in a tiny pond,” said Quirk, “Then out in the UK, I was like the worst player there by far.”
But Quirk was able to grow into his own in England. By the time his senior year rolled around, Quirk was able to flash his athleticism and scoring ability. Having scoring outbursts of 40 points in a few games and winning a summer league dunk contest.
Around this time, Cornell College basketball head coach Dave Schlabaugh ran a basketball camp in Waverly. The Snow Valley Basketball Camp brought in coaches from worldwide to teach kids basketball skills for a week. The Charnwood Rider girls’ basketball head coach made the trip. A conversation between the coaches put Quirk on Schlabaugh’s radar, and from there, the recruiting started.
Schlabaugh and Quirk met through Zoom and talked on WhatsApp throughout the quick recruiting cycle. The first call between the two included a conversation about Schlabaugh’s trip to Scotland thirty years before the call.
“I think that was the hook that got him interested,” said Quirk, “Like 90 percent of the call, he was just telling me about his trip to Scotland. But then, at the end, he was like, we love you as a player and would love to have you.”
Quirk committed and signed with Cornell, his only American offer for basketball. His decision to move to a small town in Iowa to play collegiate ball opened a wide array of possibilities for his future.
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At Cornell College, Quirk stood outside the three-point line at his new home court. The net of a shooting gun surrounded the basketball hoop that hung from the ceiling. It was Quirk’s latest obsession. He had only used one a couple of times before arriving in Iowa. Access to better equipment was one of the benefits of playing basketball in America. For countless hours during his career as a Ram, Quirk stood on the receiving end of the machine, waiting for each ball to spit out at him into his hands. With a flick of his wrist, he would send each ball towards the hoop – more often than not, putting the ball through the hoop and swishing through the twine of the net.
“I was genuinely shooting hundreds of shots every day,” said Quirk, “Not even because I wanted to work hard, but it was just like, wow, I have access to this. This is amazing.”
Quirk stopped focusing on his shooting ability in secondary school and leaned on his ability to drive the ball. At Cornell, Schlabaugh wanted him to extend his range, emphasizing three-point shooting. Quirk did precisely that.
With the development of his long-range shot, Quirk could truly take over as a scorer for the Rams. At six-foot-six and bulked up, Quirk was hard to stop as a three-level scorer. He could scorch defenses by pulling up beyond the arc or flying above the rim as an unstoppable force in the paint.
During his sophomore season, Quirk entered his first true slump of his collegiate career. He shot 26% from beyond the arc, his lowest mark at Cornell. Quirk turned to his first coach, Donell Williams, for advice.
Williams’s best advice was to just keep shooting.
“This was at a time in his career when he got a little hard on himself and thought it wouldn’t happen for him,” said Williams, “He stuck with it and [his shooting] came through.”
Quirk’s senior year, the 2021-22 season, everything began to fall into place for the Rams. Before the last game of the season, senior night vs Beloit, the Rams were 16-8. They looked to be in contention for the conference tournament championship. Quirk’s parents watched every game online, sometimes even at 2 a.m., their time in the UK. However, the travel restrictions because of COVID forced Mike and Kuan to miss their son’s senior night.
“That’s the downside of pursuing these opportunities on the other side of the world,” said Mike, “You can’t be there all the time, unfortunately.”
The Quirk’s asked Williams to stand in their place at senior night and walk across the floor with Marcus. Williams accepted the offer and traveled up to Mount Vernon from New Orleans.
“I was just so humbled by him,” said Williams, “Allowing me to come up there and share that moment with him, that was so special.”
Quirk and the Rams won that game, and the two in the Midwest conference tournament and made their first national tournament appearance in 13 years. They lost in the first round to Wash U, but it was a significant accomplishment that helped rebuild the team from their six-win season in Quirk’s freshman year.
“Our goal was that senior year we would win the conference tournament, and then we were going to go to the national tournament,” said Quirk, “Everything we said we would do, we did. It was very, very gratifying.”
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After he achieved his four-year degree from Cornell, Quirk had one more journey to embark. He wanted to get his master’s in computer science and engineering and play basketball while doing it. The one issue with that plan was that he would need two years to complete his master’s, but he only had one year of NCAA eligibility.
Quirk was initially looking at a couple of Division II schools to transfer, but he shifted his focus to opportunities back over the ocean. He found an opportunity in Taiwan, where he could go to college for his master’s and play basketball during both years.
He found an opportunity at the National Formosa University in Huwei District, Taiwan. Quirk had to decide between college hoops in Taiwan or taking the next step up to Division II in the NCAA.
“I remember saying to him, you know, if you go for the one in the US, you might think later in life, oh, that Taiwan one, I wish I did that,” recalled Mike.
Quirk took his father’s advice and signed with NFU.
Quirk’s next two years went exactly as he planned. He completed his classes for his master’s degree and played basketball during his time there. Because of his time playing for NFU, he began to get noticed by some of Taiwan’s professional basketball teams in the PLeague+ (PLG). Quirk knew he had a chance at being drafted and was good enough to play in the PLG, but for most of the offseason, he heard nothing from the teams.
“As parents, we were worried,” said Kuan, “We just hoped, hoped, hoped he would get in.”
On July 8, 2024, Quirk’s phone started ringing two days before the draft. The team with the fifth pick, the Tainan Ghost Hawks, told Quirk they wanted to draft him, but they had heard the Taoyuan Pauian Pilots were planning on taking him fourth.
Then, on draft night, the team with the third pick, the Kaohsiung Steelers, drafted Quirk. He was shocked as he walked up to the stage in his metallic gray suit.
“I was like, what? I didn’t expect that at all,” said Quirk, “They didn’t even talk to me. They didn’t call me.”
Again, his parents were on the other side of the world for this major moment in Quirk’s career. Still, they watched with pride as their son held up his first professional basketball jersey on draft night.
“Yes, it was exciting,” said Mike, “But also, it was a bit of relief because we knew he staked a lot on it.”
Quirk’s journey took many different paths, a real-life version of the “road less traveled” trope. He remains grateful for all his opportunities to pursue his dreams.
“I’m very aware of the fact, I’m not special, I have not done anything better than anyone,” said Quirk, “I just feel like I’ve been really fortunate with the opportunities I’ve been presented in my life, so I don’t let them go to waste.”
This mentality has been a staple of Quirk since he was that young, lanky 10-year-old discovering his love for basketball.
Donell Williams still has a ball from those practice sessions. It was autographed by all the kids he coached during his time in Brunei. One signature stood out on the orange basketball—Quirk’s.
“I like this quote [from Quirk]. That’s so Marcus,” said Williams, pointing to Quirk’s autograph and note he wrote on the ball.
Good-bye and thank you – Marcus.