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Sports |
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Dan Finegold recently sat down for a phone interview with NFL runningback and Allderdice alumnus Curtis Martin. Martin spoke about Allderdice, his high school days, growing up in the "Steel City", and more. Finegold: What was your football team like when you were playing at Allderdice? Martin: Well, when I was playing at Allderdice I didn’t even really want to play football. Mark Wittgartner, who was the head coach there, had talked me into playing because the neighborhood that I was from wasn’t very safe. A lot of my friends were getting in trouble and some of them were getting killed at the time and Wittgartner told me that he believed that if I played football that I could get a scholarship to anywhere that I wanted to go to in the country. And so, I just played to appease him and my mother. My mother was always begging me to do something regardless of what it was just to not be hanging around all the time and eventually get in some trouble. So I played football just to appease my mother, get away and try to stay safe just as much as possible. So the team was a good team, it was a good team. We had a good camaraderie and I was kind of standoffish in a sense because I didn’t even really want to play, but the more I got into the game the more I became a team player. We had some good guys, we had some great guys, and Mark made it really fun for us. Finegold: You said you grew up in a tough neighborhood. What neighborhood did you grow up in? Martin: Well, I grew up in Homewood and Wilkinsburg and Duquesne Finegold: You said coach Wittgartner wanted you to play so badly. How did he know that you were so talented? Martin: He was a gym teacher also, so he would watch me at phys ed class. DF: So, you just are, kind of, a natural athlete? CM: Yeah, yeah.
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New York Jets running back Curtis Martin. |
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Allderdice Alumnus Curtis Martin Tells All |
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By: Dan Finegold |
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The Allderdice Foreword An Award Wining Publication |