Alumnus shares triumph over speech hurdles
Attorney and USU alumnus Marcus Mumford shared thoughts about his nation-crossing career path, key events that helped him overcome stuttering and the faith he found that helped him throughout the process.
Mumford presented “A Stuttering Lawyer and the Philosophy of Science” Friday, Oct. 30 at the David B. Haight Alumni Center on campus.
Mumford’s speech was the second of The College of Humanities and Social Sciences Distinguished Alumni Speaker series.
The purpose of the series is to assure students that obtaining a degree from the college is valuable by featuring speakers who are examples of successful graduates from diverse fields.
The focus of Mumford’s presentation was to highlight the ways he rose to the top of the law field. He has been employed in New York and Los Angeles, despite a struggle with stuttering that was a hindrance in his work.
Severe stuttering was a potential barrier that Mumford, who graduated fro USU in 1996, said he had to learn to overcome after being diagnosed as a child.
When he was four, Mumford’s parents realized that he wasn’t progressing in speech as rapidly as others his age.
While at a Boy Scout fundraiser in the later years of his youth his stuttering contributed to his inability to sell a single ticket. At this point, Mumford said his mother played a huge role in helping to shape his character.
“After we cried together, she sent me back out again,” he said. “I came back late that night and left a note for her that I had sold every ticket.”
In the question-and-answer session, Mumford described how he served an LDS mission in Rome, Italy, despite the physical struggle. In a way, he said, the stuttering contributed to his building relationships with locals because he had to choose to speak only Italian rather than switching between conversations to English.
Focusing on just one language caused him to develop the Italian dialect and thus endear himself to the citizens.
Mumford said when he was employed by his first law firm following his graduation from BYU’s Law School in 1999, he took 30 minutes to leave a 30-second message. He wasn’t going to allow the stuttering to keep him from oral presentations in the courtroom, he said.
Once he made it into the courtroom, Mumford said in judges’ eyes he had instant credibility as a lawyer because he dealt with an insecurity. He had at some cases been so effective in his delivery that even though he was struggling to utter the next phrase, judges would sometimes mouth what he was about to say next.
“(Other) lawyers would kill for that,” he said, drawing laughter from the audience. “Your professors would kill for that.”
For the presentation, Mumford used a model with baseball umpires to describe the process of seizing control of a situation and overcoming a struggle.
The model contained three phrases that describe different approaches to a potential barrier to aspirations. The first was “I call ‘em as they are,” meant to describe those who analyze something and claim it to be the concrete truth.
“I’m here to tell you that science has had a good run, but needs to have its modesty, just as it has expected from others like religion and art,” Mumford said. “It can’t determine our values, and can have hoaxes.”
An example of that “hoax,” he said, was being told that he would not really even be able to talk because of his stuttering condition. It was when Mumford realized as a young boy that he could not let others define what his life was going to be, no matter how severe his condition.
“My first big step was to step off that ledge,” he said.
The second phrase of the model was “I call ‘em as I see ‘em,” meant to describe those who simply take something taught to them and allow for that learning to influence them completely.
Mumford called this theory the “PDS: Pretty Dang Sure” method.
The third statement that Mumford spoke about, which he spent the most time explaining, was “They ain’t nothing ‘til I call ‘em.”
“You need to say ‘I am going to be more than acted upon… I am going to be the one that acts,'” he said. Mumford compared seizing opportunities in life and letting even physical barriers, like his stuttering, not get in the way of those goals, to a parade that sees a curb, but makes the adjustment to not let the curb trip up the rest of the show.
“We (need to) react. We are (in need) to be more likely to take the invitation to join the parade,” he said.
Students who attended were impressed with Mumford’s motivating words.
“He had a really great life story about staying focused,” said Spencer Brown, an undeclared freshman. “I could tell that (his journey) has taken a lot of guts.”
Sophomore Mark Fuller, whose teacher had canceled his philosophy class to allow Fuller and his classmates to attend, also thought that Mumford’s experiences gave a great example of perseverance and overcoming odds.
“I liked how he said that that (setting new precedents) is only dangerous when you make it dangerous,” Fuller said.
Fuller also liked how Mumford provided a philosophical view on what he’s done to achieve success in his field.
Mumford could also credit success to other significant figures who played roles as motivators in him beating the odds.
“I was encouraged by mentors to ‘join the parade,'” he said. “Some might just call that a miracle.”
– rhett.wilkinson@aggiemail.usu.edu