Curtis Martin on Pitt Hall of Fame, advice for James Conner, beating Steelers in playoffs
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Curtis Martin’s relationship with football has always been complicated.
Especially since it seems like the sport chased him more than he pursued it.
Martin’s mother, Rochella, essentially dragged her son onto the field to keep him occupied and out of trouble. So, for his senior year at Taylor Allderdice High School, Martin gave the game a shot.
He became good enough and fast enough that City League power Perry Traditional Academy targeted Martin for their encounter.
“Perry was notorious for being the dirtiest, hardest-hitting team,” Martin said.
He recalls how the coaches approached dominant all-City League linebacker Ramon Walden during pregame warmups. They pointed at Martin and asked Walden what he was going to do to the football newcomer.
“Everyone in the entire league feared that guy,” Martin laughed. “(Walden) said ‘I’m going to knock his head off!’ I was new to football. But I was a hard guy to intimidate.
“I was just trepidatious because I didn’t believe in my talent at that point. Perry was a superior team to us. I felt like he was going to do his thing. But I was determined.”
Even in a 34-14 defeat, Martin went on to rush for 217 yards, including an 85-yard touchdown run. As fate would have it, Martin claims that was the one game then-Pitt defensive line coach Sal Sunseri came to watch him play. After that, Sunseri was insistent on bringing Martin to the University of Pittsburgh.
From that point, Martin’s unlikely marriage to football took him to Pitt Stadium, the New England Patriots, the New York Jets, and eventually Canton, Ohio. That’s where Martin is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame after accumulating 14,101 yards rushing (sixth place in NFL history), 17,430 yards from scrimmage (ninth all-time), and 100 total touchdowns, over an 11-year career.
Now he will also be inducted into the University of Pittsburgh Hall of Fame on Oct. 16 at Heinz Field. Martin got word last week that he will be honored with the likes of other Pitt athletes such as Brandin Knight, Ken Macha, Craig “Ironhead” Heyward, and former Panthers football coaches Jackie Sherrill and Glenn “Pop” Warner.
Despite being deemed Hall of Fame worthy, Martin’s career at Pitt still might be remembered more for what it could’ve been than what it was.
When Martin arrived in Oakland in 1991, then-coach Paul Hackett was making Tony Dorsett comparisons. However, Martin was hampered by injuries for much of his career. He never played a full season with the Panthers.
That said, Heisman Trophy hype was starting to swirl around him his senior year after a strong junior campaign and 251 yards rushing against Texas to open 1994. But an ankle injury the next week wrecked the rest of his season.
Martin could’ve applied for a redshirt. Although a conversation with Johnny Majors — who was in his second stint of coaching the Panthers at the time — pushed Martin to the NFL Draft.
“I think he was trying to ‘scare-tactic’ and convince me to come back to college. It kind of backfired because I may have taken it in an immature way. Because I chose to rebel. That option was eliminated. I (was not) coming back to college. I decided to either go home or go to the pros.
“That got me focused. I started working out and taking football seriously. It wasn’t about proving the coach wrong. It was about proving myself right, and I know I could do this if I wanted to.”
Even when Martin heard his named called by the New England Patriots in the third round of the draft, he wasn’t certain a pro football life was right for him.
“When Bill Parcells called me and asked if I wanted to be a New England Patriot, I told him ‘yes.’ When I hung up the phone, I told everyone I really don’t want to do this,” Martin recalls.
But as Martin said in his Pro Football Hall of Fame speech in 2011, his pastor — Leroy Joseph — was there and explained, “Maybe football is just something that God is giving you to do all those wonderful things that you say you want to do for other people.”
“It was at that moment I had an emotional attachment to football,” Martin said.
What followed was a career completely opposite of the one Martin went through at Pitt in terms of durability.
Martin retired as one of the most consistent and durable backs in NFL history. Over the first 10 years of his career in New York and New England, Martin played at least 15 games nine times and 13 in the other season (1997).
Never once in those seasons did he dip below 1,000 yards rushing, all while averaging 375 touches per season. For the sake of comparison, in his best year as a Steeler (2014), Le’Veon Bell had 2,215 yards from scrimmage on 373 touches. In Martin’s best year (2004), he had 1,942 yards from scrimmage on 412 touches.
And that was at the age of 31 in season number 10 at the pro level. Martin retired with 4,002 offensive touches, fourth behind only Emmitt Smith, Walter Payton and Frank Gore.
I asked Martin if he has any advice for fellow Pitt alum and current Steelers running back James Conner. Conner’s pro career seems to be following the same path as Martin traveled in college: effective when healthy, but not healthy often enough.
Martin suggested that Conner “learn to block the noise out” when it comes to criticism from fans and media about his time missed. And he also encouraged Conner to “do what’s best for your body.”
But he added a story about when he won the rushing title in his 10th season.
Martin played through most of the 2004 campaign with a bad MCL sprain. He told Parcells how much the injury was bothering him. Martin claimed he could handle the pain. The lack of stability was getting worrisome, though.
“He told me, ‘Take care of your body. That’s your priority,’” Martin remembers. “‘But on the other hand, you never want to come out of the huddle because you never know who is coming into the huddle.”
Martin said that resonated with him because his rookie year in New England, Parcells gave him the same message. When veteran Dave Meggett got hurt, Martin got on the field and won Rookie of the Year.
“It’s always been my passion that no one else get in that huddle,” Martin concluded.
Martin made those comments last week shortly after getting word of his induction to the Pitt Hall of Fame. You can hear the full interview below.
Other highlights of the conversation include:
• Memories of torching the Steelers in his 1996 NFL playoff debut: Martin called it his “most favorite game of all time,” as he ran for 166 yards and three touchdowns.
“There were Steelers fans already buying Super Bowl tickets. I’ve never taken as much pleasure in anything as destroying those people’s hopes. I had the game of my life.”
• What it was like to be compared to Dorsett at Pitt: “I really doubted I could play at that level. So to play at that level and to be compared to Tony Dorsett, who I played with on Tecmo Bowl … I thought that was way out of my league.”
• Thoughts on being inducted with Heyward: “He was Jerome Bettis before Jerome Bettis. Light feet. Great athlete. You didn’t want to see him in the hole.”