Another GREAT NY Times Article - Curtis Martin

mezzavo · Dec 3, 2010

AWESOME article about Curtis Martin! I just wonder how much better he could have been if he actually "loved" football!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/sports/football/03martin.html?_r=1&ref=sports

Inside Trinity Boxing Club in Lower Manhattan, Curtis Martin looked more like an active running back than a retired one. He pounded the heavy bag with the biceps of a bodybuilder, his body absent fat, still thick, solid, imposing, perhaps more sculptured than when he left professional football after the 2005 season.

His trainer, the boxer Ehinomen Ehikhamenor, summoned Martin, the fourth-leading rusher in N.F.L. history, into the ring. There, Martin implored a reporter with the same conviction that guided him through 11 seasons and more than 14,000 rushing yards that last week made him a semifinalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“Hit me,” Martin said. “Hit me in the face.”

That was vintage Martin, a back who welcomed contact, who played hurt and with an abandon that masked his secret: Martin never loved football, never found passion in pigskin. Instead, he saw the game as the fastest, most influential route toward the platform he now enjoys in his dizzying array of business and philanthropic efforts.

Even when he played, Martin did not want to be a scout or a coach or a broadcaster afterward. He wanted to own part of a team. He befriended Woody Johnson, the Jets’ owner and Martin’s mentor. Three years ago, at Johnson’s 60th birthday party, only three people gave speeches. One was Martin.

The party theme was “Wig out for Woody,” and most of the guests wore wigs, including Donald Trump. “People remembered two things,” Johnson said. “The wigs. And the speech from Curtis.”

That was Martin, too, as comfortable in swanky ballrooms as on muddy football fields. He was different from every other player Johnson met. As the Jets prepared for Monday night’s Martin Bowl — the Jets against the Patriots, Martin’s former teams — Johnson carried into a conference room at his Manhattan offices a list of Martin’s accomplishments and a framed letter with immaculate handwriting.

Martin gave Johnson the letter after he retired. The tone is appreciative and charming. Martin mentioned that Johnson once “offered to carry my equipment,” and he signed off, “I respect and appreciate you, #28.” Johnson calls the letter poetry, and it is the only item in his office given to him by a player.

To Johnson, the handwriting summed up Martin perfectly: “He took the time to write this. It’s distinctive, recognizable. He probably signed less often, but with higher impact. And that was Curtis.”

Martin played with an understated excellence that led him from the streets of Pittsburgh to the University of Pittsburgh to the third round of the 1995 N.F.L. draft. On that day, Bill Parcells called Martin and asked if he wanted to become a Patriot. Sure, Martin responded. But his heart said something else.

He hung up, turned to a friend and said: “I really don’t want to do this. I really don’t have the desire to play football. I don’t want to play football.”

But Martin also understood the platform an exceptional football career provided. If he wanted to feed the homeless and send doctors to poor countries and give life lessons to celebrities, football would provide the launching pad.

Parcells found Martin serious, intelligent, aware even early in his career of exactly what he wanted. Instead of venturing immediately into all his outside interests, Martin dedicated himself to football. With the first $70,000 in his bank account, he hired an assistant and a housekeeper. Each night, he came home to a clean house and a home-cooked meal. Martin was already investing — in himself.

“A player like Curtis Martin inspires you to coach,” Parcells said. “Everything he said he was going to do, he did.”

On the field, Martin was consistent. He remains one of two backs in N.F.L. history to rush for 1,000 yards in each of his first 10 seasons (Barry Sanders was the other). Martin was shifty, powerful and evasive. He moved, Johnson said, “in a way that defied description.” And Martin was vocal. His former teammate Brandon Moore remembered how Martin went one speed in practice: full.

Mostly, Martin impressed with his durability — as important as a player’s ability, according to Parcells. Martin said he played with second- and third-degree ligament tears, with broken fingers and busted shoulders. In the 2000 season opener, at Green Bay, Martin so injured his ligaments it felt as if the top half of his right leg had separated from the bottom. He wore a brace and rushed for 110 yards and scored two touchdowns in the Jets’ win.

That performance was special to Martin because of the way he earned it. “I believed my value to a team was in things like that,” he said.

Martin retired when doctors told him that if he returned from another knee injury, he might require a cane to walk by age 38. In describing how the announcement felt, Martin wiped his hands clean.

All along, Martin had a plan. Like a bride dreaming of her wedding day, Martin said, he dreamt about retiring from football. He donated at least 12 percent of every check to charity. He started the Curtis Martin Job Foundation. He met with Johnson, asked questions, even attended the N.F.L. scouting combine with Jets executives.

Everything Martin is doing now stems from that preparation. He works with single mothers and Surgicorps, an organization that sends doctors to third-world countries to perform operations. He helps fight homelessness in New York City, even once sitting for three hours with a homeless man who went by the name Cowboy. In the winter, in freezing temperatures, Martin said he convinced Cowboy to take temporary residence.

Of his business ventures, Martin remains more private. Shortly after retirement, he served as a life coach to celebrities and others in New York and Los Angeles. He is designing a home fitness center in a partnership with the Jets. Martin said he preferred stable businesses, and as such, he was also buying an insurance company.

Mostly, Martin wants to own an N.F.L. team. He declined to name specific teams, but predicted he would be an owner within the next five years.

“Football has been a great platform to reach people,” Martin said. “Ownership is just an extension, a bigger, better way of doing that.”

Last month was a good month, a perfect month, for Martin. He married his fiancée, Carolina, before roughly 180 guests. He honeymooned in Cabo San Lucas, zip-lining and whale watching and rappelling down mountains. After returning, he received word from the Hall of Fame, and he said even his status as a semifinalist prompted more emotion than he expected.

Martin has good company on the coming ballot. His first year of eligibility coincides with those for Jerome Bettis, Marshall Faulk, Willie Roaf and Deion Sanders. Parcells acknowledged his lack of objectivity, but said Martin should be elected on the first ballot.

Martin said: “When I think of the Hall, what’s most satisfying is this really wasn’t something that I wanted. But I’m proud of that fact. I made the most of that situation. I maximized my opportunity.”

Imagine that. The reluctant running back giving his Hall of Fame speech, on the verge of ownership. Only in the world according to Curtis Martin.
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LWC611 · Dec 3, 2010

Thanks Mezzavo. That was a great read. C-Mart is one helluva guy. I hope he is a first ballot hall of famer.

nyjetsrule · Dec 3, 2010

amazing. You would never have known it wasnt his whole life by watching him play. truly awesome

Hobbes3259 · Dec 3, 2010

mezzavo said: ↑

AWESOME article about Curtis Martin! I just wonder how much better he could have been if he actually "loved" football!!!
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Much like Al Toon.

Do you remember his retirement.

Never liked football...till he couldn't play any more..then it broke his heart....

Edwards is the same way....The Jets should get Martin and Toon to talk to Braylon.

mezzavo · Dec 3, 2010

Hobbes3259 said: ↑

Much like Al Toon.

Do you remember his retirement.

Never liked football...till he couldn't play any more..then it broke his heart....

Edwards is the same way....The Jets should get Martin and Toon to talk to Braylon.
Click to expand...

Agreed!!! Just imagine the potential!!

Probably the single most important compliment I gathered from that article was from Parcells. He never blew sunshine up anyone's ass but him saying

“A player like Curtis Martin inspires you to coach,” Parcells said. “Everything he said he was going to do, he did.”
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...that is a tremendous compliment coming from a Hall of Fame coach. Impressive.

Big Blocker · Dec 3, 2010

Martin is my favorite Jet after Namath. It would be a travesty if he's not in the Hall on the first opportunity.

Hobbes3259 · Dec 3, 2010

mezzavo said: ↑

Agreed!!! Just imagine the potential!!

Probably the single most important compliment I gathered from that article was from Parcells. He never blew sunshine up anyone's ass but him saying ...that is a tremendous compliment coming from a Hall of Fame coach. Impressive.
Click to expand...

I tell you, I loved Toon as a player..but finding out that he never liked Football (which is what they say about Edwards now..."he likes what football gives him, not so much football itself"...) and seeing him realize the regret when he was forced to retire, made it that much more heartbreaking...

Another GREAT NY Times Article - Curtis Martin

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Another GREAT NY Times Article - Curtis Martin

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