Charlie Martin WR Chargers

celticdb15

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Kevin Walter clone, no joke
 

referendum

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Leonardfan, nice find, I had skipped over him in my survey of marginal white players, assuming from his name, and the team he was on that he was black. Kind of a reverse Bryan Kehl.
 

Jimmy Chitwood

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you guys need to pay closer attention! i posted on Charlie Martin's stats all last season.
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he's a heck of a ball player, and should've been drafted. without a doubt, he has the talent to be a contributor in the NFL. however, he has that dang debilitating skin condition that seems to short circuit talent ... maybe the San Diego sun will help him tan dark enough to overcome it. *rants*
 

Colonel_Reb

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Jimmy Chitwood said:
you guys need to pay closer attention! i posted on Charlie Martin's stats all last season.
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Funny ain't it?
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Jimmy Chitwood

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first off, Martin's first name is "Charly" with a Y!
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i mis-spelled it in my earlier post, as well.
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secondly, for those who didn't see the Chargers pre-season game, Martin had a team-high 67 yards on 5 catches and averaged 24 yards-per-kick return on three returns.

thirdly, he's no over-achiever. he's a very good athlete. here's some of his story and his athletic numbers:

Charly is a 2003 graduate of Piedra Vista High School in Farmington, New Mexico where he earned all-State honors as both a receiver and cornerback. He was a North All-Star selection and earned both offensive and defensive first-team all-District honors and was named district Defensive Back of the Year. An all-around athlete, Martin also lettered three years each in basketball and track. He was a state champion in track and was a second-team all-District selection in basketball.

Charly redshirted in 2003 at West Texas, and in 2004 he saw action in 5 games with 9 catches good for 145 yards and a TD. In 2005, Charly took a medical redshirt season. In 2006, he grabbing 73 receptions, 10 touchdowns and a Lone Star Conference-leading 1,169 receiving yards. In 2007, he put up 67 catches for 927 yards and 11 TDs despite being limited due to injury.

His 2008 performance has to rank as one of the most amazing collegiate receiving efforts of all time, as he caught 95 balls good for 1867 yards and 22 TDs.

Did well at the WTAMU Pro Day, running 4.54/4.58 with 1.54 and 1.54 10-yard splits; posted a 4.18 and 4.28 in the short shuttle, a 6.78 in the 3-cone, 11.48 long shuttle, a 36" vertical, a 9'6" broad jump and 9 reps.

and here's a profile on him, where he talks about the path he's had to take. and as with so many White athletes, even his own "friends" told him he wasn't good enough to play wide receiver!
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Rookie's goal: Make Chargers say, 'We've got to keep this guy'

SAN DIEGO â€" Philip Rivers breaks into that good-ol' boy, Southern drawl when asked about Charly Martin.


"He's one of those guys who as camp goes on, he just grows on you,"Â said the Chargers quarterback. "I expect him to make some plays in the preseason."Â

Which, unless you're a roster-memorizing, summer-camp Bolts fanatic, begs one question: Who's Charly Martin?


He's a 25-year-old rookie free agent wide receiver out of Division II West Texas A&M. A guy who admits the odds against him are long. A guy who happily signed for a $5,000 bonus because all he wants is a chance to prove he can play at the next level.

Said Martin, "I'm going to put a team in a situation where they're like, 'We've got to keep this guy.'"Â
Martin has proven the skeptics wrong before.


Like when he came out of Framington (N.M.) High and said he'd play college football. Friends didn't laugh in his face, but eyes rolled.

The rap then?


"Kind of the whole, 'You're white. You're slow,'"Â Martin said.


He took his $500 books scholarship â€" the only offer he received â€" headed to West Texas A&M and proceeded to set school records for catches, receiving yards and touchdown receptions.


His numbers as a senior last year were pinball-esque: 95 catches, 1,867 yards and 22 TDs.

No one, of course, confuses the Lone Star Conference (Texas A&M-Commerce?) with the SEC. Take West Texas' playoff game last year against Abilene Christian when Martin's side put 68 points on the board.


And lost by 25, 93-68.

"All I ever say,"Â said Martin, "is I played offense."Â


His stats that day: 14 catches, a Division II playoff-record 323 yards, five touchdowns.

"We're glad he's gone,"Â said Abilene Christian head coach Chris Thomsen.

Dig into Martin's past and you'll be regaled with stories about the 6-foot-1, 210-pound receiver's hunger for the game.


"Hardest worker I ever had,"Â said Framington High offensive coordinator Frank Whalen, now in his 19th season of coaching. "Last guy to leave the weight room and last guy to leave the field."Â

West Texas receivers coach Mike Nesbitt tells the tale of Martin dressing for a road game, but being strictly told to keep to the sidelines for warmups and the game. Martin, who redshirted one season and was granted a medical redshirt in another, was recovering from a torn labrum.


"I'm not paying attention,"Â recalls Nesbitt. "I turn around and Charly's out there in pregame, taking reps with the first team, running and catching the ball. The head coach says to me, 'If you don't get the helmet away from that guy, you're not going to have a job anymore."Â

Said Martin, who punctuates sentences with yes-sir and no-sir, "I felt kind of bad."Â


While the odds of making an NFL roster as a free agent are long, they're hardly astronomical. The Chargers' roster is loaded with free-agent finds â€" Jacques Cesaire, Stephen Cooper, David Binn, Kassim Osgood, to name a few â€" topped by Pro Bowl tight end Antonio Gates.

Last year's NFL Defense Player of the Year, Steelers linebacker James Harrison, was a free agent.
At wide receiver, Wes Welker is the free-agent poster child. The Chargers signed him out of Texas Tech in 2004, cut him after one game, the Dolphins picked him up and now he's Tom Brady's security blanket at New England.


As you'd expect from a player who's three units shy of earning a master's in sports business, Martin did his homework when prepping for the NFL.

He signed with the Chargers partly because the team's top three wide receivers (Vincent Jackson, Chris Chambers and Malcom Floyd) are scheduled to be free agents next season. And because he knew his chances of making an NFL roster depended on his ability to play special teams, he nagged the West Texas coaches into letting him see some action there last season.


"I had to beg just to get me a few (plays) because I knew I needed film for the NFL,"Â Martin said.
In the second game of the season at Central Oklahoma, Martin burst through the middle of the line, blocked a punt and recovered it in the end zone for a touchdown.

"When he was born, somebody touched him and said, 'You are built to be a football player,'"Â said Nesbitt.


For Saturday's preseason opener against Seattle, Martin said he's slated to return kickoffs and play the outside gunner position on the punt team.

While many fans grumble about paying regular-season prices for preseason football, Martin's view is understandably different.


Leaning against his locker at Chargers Park, Martin broke into a smile, then said of the Seahawks game, "It's my Super Bowl. It's the biggest game I've played in my life."Â
Edited by: Jimmy Chitwood
 

Don Wassall

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I watched part of the fourth quarter when Martin was playing. The announcers were actually playing him up, but in an amused kind of way. The play by play announcer at one point called him the Chargers' "Wes Welker," a purely racial (racist) reference as there is no similarity between the two in size and build, nor in the position they play (Welker is mostly a slot receiver, Martin was split wide). It's kind of like comparing Byron Leftwich to Gary Coleman. Now that I think of it, their faces are similar.




Coleman:
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Leftwich:
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Edited by: Don Wassall
 

backrow

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good article (thank Jimmy, you're a star!) and a good post Don.

if anything Charly reminds me of Kevin Walter, although he might be slightly smaller and quicker.
 

celticdb15

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HAHA Don!
 

green fire317

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funny how every white wide out is now being compared to Wes Welker no matter how different they are from Welker.
 

Jimmy Chitwood

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you guys seriously need to pay attention and actually READ the posts other folks submit. i posted on Martin's numbers all last season in the college football stars section.

CHARLY (with a Y) Martin has plenty of talent, speed, size, and productivity to be a legitimate NFL wide receiver. of course, he has the debilitating skin disorder that prevents most with his condition from every getting a fair shake ... that being said, he's got the tools. and if the team bases its decision on merit, then he'll be a Charger. if not, then he'll fall to the Caste System like so many others before him.
 

whiteathlete33

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Wow Sorry man!!!!!!!! I don't always check the college football posts and whenever I see a name like Charly Martin which I have never heard before I am surprised. Nice game by Martin anyways.
 

StarWars

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6'1" 210 lbs
4.54 40. Even faster side to side, with decent strength. Played well in preseason debut. Although you could of got that by scrolling upwards.
 

Jimmy Chitwood

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green fire317 said:
thanks, alot of times i just skim through the posts above.

how about you actually READ them?
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that's what they are for, mate.

there are a lot of folks on this site, myself included, whogive a lot of their time to keep track of the facts regarding the caste system. the least you could do is read what they post.

then, the other posters wouldn't have to babysit you. AND you might actually learn something.
 
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