There was little reason to believe that when Marco Treviño first laced up his skates as a 4-year-old that it was the beginning of a lifetime in hockey.

After all, young Mexican American boys back then were more likely to gravitate toward familiar sports such as soccer and baseball, which he also wound up playing. 

Something always pulled Treviño back to that rink in Stonegate, Michigan, however.

His immigrant father, who spent 40 years working as a laborer, provided motivation for Treviño and his older brother in the form of concession food and Slurpees at the rink, where 50-cent open skating sessions made it all affordable. 

Yet there was more to it than that.

Turns out that Treviño simply loved the game, was good at it, and had plenty of support from his hard-working dad.

“That was instilled in us in whatever we did,” said Treviño of the work ethic that he and his two siblings inherited. “My father would always push us to be as good as we can [be].”

High-level travel teams eventually sowed interest in Treviño, but his family couldn’t afford the many expenses that come with travel hockey. Thankfully for Treviño, other families chipped in and let him stay in hotels with them, making it possible for him to pursue hockey at an elite level.

Though his parents couldn’t take time off from work to travel with him, they supported Treviño throughout his playing days. 

“They never didn’t let me play,” he said. “We found a way to make it happen.”

In the process, they launched a hockey career that saw Treviño play two years in the USHL with the Waterloo Black Hawks and the Sioux City Musketeers before later playing professionally in two different minor leagues.

Treviño got into coaching near the end of his playing career, and he eventually returned to the USHL as a scout in 2019 for the Des Moines Buccaneers. From there, Treviño worked his way up the ranks and became the head coach of the Tri-City Storm for the 2024-25 season.

“I played in the league and loved the league,” Treviño said. “I really think that you can do a lot for players that are at that level, just age-wise and maturity-wise. That was kind of what I wanted to help kids through. That’s a level near and dear to my heart.”

In order to coach the team in Kearney, Nebraska, Treviño had to leave his wife and three children behind at their home in Wexford, Pennsylvania, and was looking for a way to return. He found it on July 14, when he became an assistant hockey coach for Robert Morris University in nearby Moon Township. 

“This is a blessing, for sure,” he said. “I’m pretty fortunate. I couldn’t be happier.”

The scouting and recruiting that are necessary for a college job are right in Treviño’s wheelhouse and feed into his previous experience in the USHL.

Robert Morris reinstated its hockey program two years ago after a two-year hiatus and Treviño is looking forward to helping it grow. 

“We have a hungry group, I think, that kind of wants to prove that things are changing, and we’re rebuilding the program here at Robert Morris,” he said. “We have a really, really nice group. We have a pretty heavy junior class. We have a nice older group.”

Treviño’s oldest son, Tristen, has committed to Robert Morris and could join that group as soon as next year.

“We try to put him first,” said Treviño, “and if it’s not something he wanted, that was going to affect whether I took the job.”

That settled, Treviño will apply his family work ethic to his position at Robert Morris, which marks his first NCAA experience.

“I think Robert Morris kind of saw something in me that they felt that I was able to be at this level,” he said. “So, I’m just very thankful for the opportunity to keep progressing.”

He’s already surpassed his own expectations during his hockey journey, so Treviño has reset his long-term goal to run his own Division I program. 

Treviño said that he’s surprised at just how much he loves hockey and how it’s become a fabric of his life.

“It’s just such a big part of not only my life, but my family’s life,” he said. “I really feel like hockey’s kind of given me everything.”

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.