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A Big-Hearted Man Takes on a Big Job Former Giant George Martin Is Charged With Melding Two NFL Alumni Organizations Into a More Effective Whole By Aditi Kinkhabwala, The Wall Street Journal, 7/26 NEWARK—George Martin is 56 years old. He spent 14 years as part of the Giants' defensive line, served as president of the NFL players union and logged two decades in corporate America. And yet, when he talks about the Giants' cafeteria at their new training facility, when he talks about the dietitians and the customized meals, his eyes go wide. His voice rises. "You have all these tables where you can get fruits and vegetables," he says. "We had bowls of potato chips," he says. "It's like the caveman days versus the Jetsons," he says, the exclamation point now obvious, the excitement palpable and the question apparent— where's the hardness? Where's the jaded cynicism a veteran of Mr. Martin's experiences should have, especially over a couple granola bars? "No way, I was a kid in there," he says of his first visit to the Giants' Timex Performance Center. "No wonder current players don't think too much about us—I don't blame them!" Sitting across a gleaming new conference table, in front of a window above Newark's Washington Square, Mr. Martin breaks into hearty laughter. Age hasn't taken any of the 6-foot-4 frame that terrorized quarterbacks all through the 1980s. A still daily six-mile walk has him looking at least close to his playing weight, and nothing's stripped that fresh-faced sanguinity 1 / 5 A Big-Hearted Man Takes on a Big Job that Mr. Martin now brings to what may be his biggest challenge: making those current players—and NFL fans everywhere—think about the men of his fraternity. Mr. Martin is the executive director of the newly-reconstituted NFL Alumni Association, installed in October to morph together a long-standing charitable group of former NFL players with one focused on advocacy for those same men. With seed money from the NFL, Mr. Martin is charged with creating an umbrella organization for all sorts of NFL alumni organizations and true to his completely frank nature, he self-deprecatingly says, "In my infinite wisdom, I brought these two factions together as board members in trying to see if we can co-exist." "It's a work in progress and no, it's not working," he goes on, with a laugh. "I will candidly tell you, it's not working." This is no easy task Mr. Martin has taken on. The NFL Players Association, which will undertake what already promises to be an arduous negotiation with the league and team owners for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement and therefore will help argue for former players' pensions, has a Former Players Board. Nolan Harrison III, a member of that board, says there are 39 chapters of former players under the NFLPA's auspices. He says it is his group that should address the health and the care of—and the benefits for—former NFL players that have grabbed headlines in recent years. "Is there a reason to have a charity organization become a labor group that's funded by the owners after DeMaurice Smith was elected Executive Director of the NFLPA?" Mr. Harrison asks. "No, I don't believe that." Uphill climbs are nothing new to Mr. Martin. He's the son of a sharecropper, one who only completed the third grade, and a mother who finished school in eighth grade. He was born in Greenville, S.C., the second of five children, and it wasn't until the family's move to California, when he was about 12, that he started playing sports. He became student body president in high school, took a combined basketball and football scholarship to Oregon and when his claim that he was never all that into football prompts a 2 / 5 A Big-Hearted Man Takes on a Big Job listener to raise an eyebrow, the 14-year NFL veteran, 10-year Giants captain and Super Bowl XXI winner raises his own eyebrow. "Football hurts," he said. "Football really hurts." He went from a tight end to a defensive end his junior year, the Giants selected him in the 11th round of the 1978 draft and he told his wife Dianne he'd be home in three weeks, before training camp ended. A decade later he began what would become an annual pilgrimage, into Bill Parcells' office, telling the coach he was retiring—and being turned down. "Bill Parcells wouldn't let him retire. He kept saying, 'You can't George, we need you for one more year,'" Harry Carson said with a chuckle. Mr. Carson was a linebacker who'd eventually be in the Hall of Fame and spent that full decade as a Giants captain alongside Mr. Martin. He says even then his old friend was an old "Pops." And not just because Mr. Martin went to Farleigh Dickinson University and created a degree completion program, one that 16 players, one spouse (Dianne Martin) and one assistant coach used that first year and one that is now the model for every NFL team's own such program. "One day I said to him, 'George, I love football. I would play this game for nothing,'" Mr. Carson said. "He looked at me and said, 'Harry, you're a fool. Don't ever let them know you'd play this game for nothing. Then they'll make you play for nothing.' '' When Mr. Parcells finally let Mr. Martin get another job, it was first heading the human resources department for a printing company. Then he went to Mutual of New York, which eventually became AXA Equitable, and created a new sports marketing division, offering financial seminars to professional sports teams around the country. In 2008, Mr. Martin took a buyout and undertook a much-celebrated 3,000-mile walk from Sept. 16 2008 to June 22, 2009, across America. He jokes now that it was part of his bucket list because as a child in the segregated South, he 3 / 5 A Big-Hearted Man Takes on a Big Job always wondered "where are the people on Leave it to Beaver?" But in actuality, it was a very serious mission. He raised $3 million in cash to help pay the medical bills of Sept. 11 first responders, a sum matched by three local hospitals. He set up a non-profit corporation. And the methodical, organized way he went about the whole project is a hallmark of anything he takes on. Mr. Martin returned ready for retirement. He thought he'd have time for the charcoal sketches he used to draw, the furniture he used to make or the gardening in the Ringwood, N.J., house he's called home for three decades. His four children have given him five grandkids too, but Mr. Carson started harassing him to apply for this new position. "I know what makes George tick, I know what his commitment level is and I've seen him under pressure," Mr. Carson says. "I also know George is much more diplomatic than someone like me. He doesn't use four-letter words and he doesn't throw chairs.'' And so, Mr. Martin's days are now filled with meetings and e-mails, building a staff, writing bylaws and trying to unify the nearly 12,000 former NFL players, as they traverse post-football life. He'd like to fight for better research on the effects of playing football, for improved health care and benefits and pensions. He also sees marketing opportunities. NFL Alumni Association managing director Ron George says, "George absolutely is a slave driver," but he also says his boss is a merry prankster, one who loves birthdays, says hello and good-bye every day and still writes handwritten thank-you notes. "I know he sleeps because everyone sleeps, but I do wonder when sometimes," Mr. George says. "It is not uncommon for me to get an e-mail from George at 2 a.m., then get another one at 4 a.m. saying, 'Good morning Ron, did you sleep well?'" 4 / 5 A Big-Hearted Man Takes on a Big Job "Lots of people work long hours, don't get me wrong. But to do it with such consistent fervent dedication to the mission of this organization, which is at its very core to help and support former NFL players, it's amazing," he says. Perhaps more amazing, Mr. Martin promises none of this will wear him down. Nothing that came before could take his good nature and certainly nothing will now. "It is my job to help those who can't necessarily help themselves," he says. "How can you not have a glow about the possibilities?" How not indeed. 5 / 5.

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