Curtis Martin

Discussion in 'New York Jets' started by twinjetfan, May 31, 2007.

  1. twinjetfan

    twinjetfan New Member

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    This could very well be his last day as a player on the Jets, so lets give him thanks and good luck to the future.

    [​IMG]

    :martin:
     
  2. Murrell2878

    Murrell2878 Lets go JETS!
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    :martin: :martin: :martin: :martin:

    Good Luck Curtis!! Thanks for the memories!!!!!
     
  3. PennyandtheJets

    PennyandtheJets Well-Known Member

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    He will go down as one of the greatest RB's of all time and the best RB for the Jets of all time...

    I watched a piece on Curtis Martin on NFL Network yesterday and it makes me truly appreciate the fact that I got to watch him play live and will always miss seeing him play the game.

    Great man, great football player and should succeed in whatever he wants to do.
     
  4. twinjetfan

    twinjetfan New Member

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    Here is a good article I found on him. It's old from the AFC Divisional Game vs. the Steelers :)sad:):

    http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05014/441889.stm

    AFC Playoffs / The Jets: Curtis Martin a football star by accident
    Friday, January 14, 2005

    By Chuck Finder, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


    Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette
    "I don't play football because I love football so much," says Jets running back Curtis Martin. "Football is a means to help and escape. [I have] a much stronger voice with adults as well as kids because of it."
    Click photo for larger image.



    HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- Truth be told, Curtis Martin never much cared for football. Never watched the Steelers play. Never wanted to play in college, though his mom thought the whole scholarship deal would keep him out of trouble. Never even watched a full game on television, coin toss to end, until the Super Bowl the year before last, in his 30th year in this blown up and laced nation.

    Never thought his life would be like this, either: Long Island penthouse seen on MTV Cribs, art collection with objects dating back to the 17th century, a celebrity Bible study and a lifestyle so spotless that the best The New York Post's gossipy Page Six can unearth on him is that he enjoys takeout from the Italian eatery Da Silvano. Lobster gnocchi and tuna pepato. Which a guy who grew up in McKeesport, Wilkinsburg, Homewood, the Hill District and Duquesne never figured he would want as drive-through eats, let alone drive to fetch behind the wheel of a Range Rover.

    He considers himself a Long Island man now, wrapped around an enigma of a Pittsburgh guy from the previous two-thirds of his down-and-up life. He bought some property, drew up plans for more space to contain his art, hopes to break ground here in the offseason. He'll still come back to Duquesne. But this is home now, too.

    This square-shouldered man of 31, one of the NFL's top five all-time rushers seemingly by accident, prefers the solitude and peace of being able to blend into a background of some 11 million people in this madding metropolis. Oh, he could be Derek Jeter of the Yankees, dating Mariah Carey and filming commercials. He could be Mike Piazza of the Mets, trying to dazzle Gotham and dying his hair. He could be as huge as Jennifer Lopez, as omnipresent as Sean "P-Diddy" Combs (whose 35th birthday party he attended), as celebrated as perhaps even The Donald himself. Nah.

    Martin chooses a different path, which is what football provided him in the first place. An avenue for better works. A direction.

    "They know I don't play football because I love football so much," he said this week of his New York Jets mates, with whom tomorrow he will confront his hometown Steelers in an AFC Divisional playoff. "Football is a means to help and escape. Curtis Martin, New York Jets running back, has a much stronger voice with adults as well as kids because of it. That dedication is to people, a purpose in life."

    He comes home tomorrow, an Allderdice and Pitt fellow for whom football came late, in a senior high-school season when he starred. In this instance, he comes home to play the Steelers for a sixth time in a 10-year career where the decorating hasn't stopped: NFL's leading rusher this season with 1,697 yards, the league's fourth all-time rusher with 13,366 yards (70 ahead of the Steelers' Jerome Bettis), the best running back to never crack the Emmitt-Walter-Barry code, even if he has enough seasons left in him to surpass their numbers. One more season like this, and he'll beat Barry Sanders' record of 10 consecutive 1,000-yard years.

    Just the same way he doesn't work up a lather about tomorrow's homecoming -- "this is my first time playing a playoff game in Pittsburgh, so I'm looking forward to that; but I was never really a Steeler fan or a football fan, so I don't get emotional about the game" -- he doesn't get all fussed up about numbers.

    Sure, he programmed his entry code into the Jets' Hofstra University complex to read: 1700. It was a total he strived to eclipse this season, and he came up a scant three yards short. Still and all, he became the oldest player to lead the league in rushing, quite an accomplishment for a decade-long veteran at a position that eats up and spits out the average tailback after, what, three seasons?

    Oh yeah, it also was his career-highest total, and don't bother straining to hear praise heaped on him.

    "The thing that motivates everything he does is his faith," Pro Bowl-starting center Kevin Mawae said. "He doesn't need to be in the spotlight to be the man and the football player he is. He doesn't want it. Doesn't need it. Doesn't ask for it."

    Martin didn't realize all that when he joined the Allderdice football team, forced by his mother into some sort of extracurricular activity so he wouldn't have a gun put to his head again, when he may not be so lucky that it jammed. He quickly owned the City League, to the point where then-Pitt coach Paul Hackett had to have him for the Panthers.

    "My mom didn't want me out on the streets," Martin recalled. "Too many of us were getting killed. I feel like I could have been dead so many times. I feel so blessed and grateful that [bad] things never panned out for me."

    Hackett and assistant Sal Sunseri wooed Martin, sold his mother on a Pitt education, landed the prize recruit. "I listened to them and the whole time I'm thinking in my mind, 'They don't know, I don't even care.' I was horrible in college. I didn't want to play. I just didn't want to look stupid [frittering away] the scholarship."

    When he left Pitt early in 1995, long after Hackett was ousted (he is now Martin's offensive coordinator with the Jets), Martin still didn't want football even while Bill Parcells was selecting him in the third round of the draft. It wasn't until Martin telephoned his pastor, the Rev. Leroy Joseph, that he saw the post-draft path before him. His pastor told him that football was his vehicle and the Maker was handing him the keys.

    "For me, it clicked, and I gained an appreciation day by day," Martin said.

    The brash, bullying Parcells, of all people, became his mentor. First in New England, then in New York.

    "Bill is one of the closest relationships I've had in my life," Martin said. "Bill has filled that father role, especially since I came into the NFL. He invested in me, and I'm grateful for it.

    "I think he respected that football wasn't my end-all. But he knew that football was a means, and that it made me work harder."

    Martin used football as a fulcrum, gaining 1,000-plus yards each autumn, gaining national respectability and credibility. He spent much of the rest of his time speaking at churches, giving the scared-straight lecture in schools, doling out dollars to just about every other person who asked for help. He once flew directly from the Pro Bowl to pray with his former Allderdice coach, Mark Wittgartner, who just lost his son in a sky-diving accident. He bailed out the Petra International Ministries. He paid for funerals.

    "I've saved a lot of people's lives everywhere, but mostly in Pittsburgh," he said without sounding immodest. "I don't want to coach, I don't want to recruit, I don't want to do any of that. When I retire, I'll have a role in people's lives."

    His own life isn't exactly monastic, though.

    He started collecting art objects, of which he has around 20, once he undertook a remodeling job in his apartment. "I had bare walls," he explained, though Mawae used to live in the same building and knows better. Mawae added: "It's like a men's spa in there. It's the only place I know that has linen carpeting."

    The Jets standout gets spotted courtside at Knicks games. He shows at New York movie premieres. He made Esquire Magazine's best-dressed list in 2004. In earlier years, he was linked romantically to singer Toni Braxton, an outdated fact he later asked the Jets to remove from his media-guide biography (along with a child to whom he was a godfather, not father). He has been linked recently with Destiny's Child member Michelle Williams, a fellow devout Christian.

    It can't be easy to blend into the background in New York. "It's tough," he said. "You have to be disciplined. There's consequences to everything. I've learned to beware when I'm only considering the benefits of something instead of the consequences."

    He'll lead the Jets in pregame prayer tomorrow. Next, he'll try to run roughshod over the Steelers he refused to watch as a kid ("I was a knucklehead back then") but has come back to gash for 483 yards in five NFL meetings. And he'll board the team flight back to his new address, his new lifestyle.

    "This is home. This will be home, even after football," Martin said of Long Island. "I just like it here. It suits me, fits me, everything that I want. I'm a Pittsburgher, but I live in New York."
     
  5. ScotsJet

    ScotsJet Active Member

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    Do you think the fact that a love of football is now a core Jet value has affected Curtis' relationship with the team, given that it isn't his primary focus?
     
  6. WhiteShoeWillis

    WhiteShoeWillis Well-Known Member

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    I don't think he'd still be a Jet, working out and trying to make a comeback that he pretty much knows isn't going to happen if he didn't love football. He's having a hard time letting go. Regardless of what he's said in the past about how he feels about the game, I believe he does love it based on his actions.

    When he retires we should all sport a Curtis avatar for 28 days as a tribute kind of like when we did when Chrebet hung 'em up.
     
  7. MobiusOne28

    MobiusOne28 New Member

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    I'm all for that, great idea man :up:
     
  8. gustoonarmy

    gustoonarmy 2006-2007 TGG.com Best International Poster of the

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    Hes officially the Jet whose Jersey I worn more of than any other shirt I own , and that includes a certain Alan Shearer who is God in these parts.
    M Vick , Pacman etc...... this is how we expect our players to play and act on and off the field.
    Cheers Curtis my favourite Martin
     
    #8 gustoonarmy, May 31, 2007
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2007
  9. Italian Seafood

    Italian Seafood New Member

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    Can't say enough good things about Curtis Martin, as a player and a person. Best wishes to him.
     
  10. Youth Is Served

    Youth Is Served New Member

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    Martin is a definition of character and was glad to be able to watch and read about him. He will be very successful with the rest of his life, and will do so much good for this nation. Teacher, mentor, professional, hall of famer. Curtis "My Favorite" Martin. You will be missed.

    Youth
     
  11. German Jets Fan

    German Jets Fan 2007 TGG.com Rookie of the Year Award Winner

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    #11 German Jets Fan, May 31, 2007
    Last edited: May 31, 2007
  12. #1 Jets Fan

    #1 Jets Fan Guest

    Thanks C-mart your the 3rd best RB in NFL history
     
  13. Sandman

    Sandman Well-Known Member

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    Curtis has been our true shining light through some good and bad seasons. So under-rated is laughable. A true gent and a class player, ill miss not having him on the team even as a sideline influence.

    Good luck CMart, we miss you already.
     
  14. iamaudfa

    iamaudfa Banned

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    curtis will probaly not retire until june 15...day 2 of mini camp.he will try to work out day 1 and he probaly won't be able to do it . so that will be it
     
    #14 iamaudfa, Jun 1, 2007
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2007
  15. rillo

    rillo New Member

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    Thanks for everything Curtis.....You will be missed!
     
  16. iamaudfa

    iamaudfa Banned

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    Sources: Jets' Martin talking of comeback
    BY RICH CIMINI
    DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

    Saturday, June 2nd 2007, 4:00 AM

    Curtis Martin's damaged knee might be telling him to retire, but his heart has yet to give the final okay.

    While many believe he's prolonging the inevitable, the Jets' future Hall of Fame running back still is clinging to the faint hope that he can resume his career, multiple sources told the Daily News yesterday.

    "He's talking about trying to come back," one source said.

    It's a longshot, and Martin knows that, but he's such a fierce competitor that he apparently doesn't want to surrender until the last possible moment. He may take several more weeks, perhaps until the start of training camp in late July, before making a decision.

    A month ago, Martin, 34, said he was working out twice a week at the Jets' facility, "keeping my options open and trying to make sure I stay in shape."

    The organization went into the offseason thinking Martin, who hasn't played since 2005, would make an announcement by June1. From all indications, they're giving him plenty of space, allowing him to set his own timetable. Things could get sticky if it drags to training camp; the Jets appear set at running back, especially with the addition of Thomas Jones.

    Martin's recent lawsuit against Lloyd's of London could be impacting his timetable. Claiming he was "permanently disabled" by a knee injury in 2005, he's suing the insurer for refusing to pay him the $5 million in coverage he purchased - roughly the amount of his lost wages in 2006.
     
  17. championjets69

    championjets69 2008/2009 TGG Darksider Award Winner

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    Yep very best to U & good luck in whatever endeavor U take up next


     
  18. statjeff22

    statjeff22 2008 Green Guy "Most Knowledgeable" Award Winner

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    This just makes me sad. Obviously the same competitive fire that fueled his performance all these years won't let him realize that it's over. This is exactly the reason why so many former football players can barely move (or worse) when they're 50.

    Curtis exemplified everything that is good about competitive sports. I wish he would accept that this part of his life is over, and move on, before he damages himself even more.
     
  19. Cman68

    Cman68 The Dark Admin, 2018 BEST Darksider Poster

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    "Paging Earl Campbell...."
     
  20. championjets69

    championjets69 2008/2009 TGG Darksider Award Winner

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    Yes for sure & I am sure his attorneys are also telling him if U try to play again U will be jeopardizing ur law suit against Lloyds




     

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