Yellow Pages
CONCRETE — James Martin shows what hard work can do for a football player.
Martin was born so prematurely doctors told his family he might not live. By the time he got to his sophomore year at Concrete High School, he was an undersized, inexperienced kid who badly wanted to play football and was willing to work to do it.
But after hours of practice and work in the weight room, Martin is now a senior captain for the Lions, and coach Ron Rood said he is one of the best linemen in the league.
“He’s one of the top players in the league at his position, even though he’s a smaller guy,” Rood said.
Martin was born premature in Yakima. He weighed three pounds, five ounces and was in an incubator for six months.
Martin says one doctor told his mother he wouldn’t live past the age of 5. When he went home, he was on oxygen, with tanks and hoses running throughout the house.
After a few years, he was taken off the oxygen. It wasn’t the first time Martin would overcome a challenge.
His family moved to Concrete when he was in the sixth grade, and when he reached high school he wanted to play football, a sport he had never played before.
In his freshman year, his mother wouldn’t let him, fearing injury; in his sophomore year he talked her into it.
“I begged, I pleaded, I said I’m only going to go through high school once,” Martin recalled.
His mother consented, and Martin joined the team. He was undersized, and although he showed tenacity in going up against bigger teammates in practice, he knew he’d have to get bigger to compete.
“Everyone seemed really big,” he said of his sophomore year. “I was like, ‘Oh my God — I’m going to get killed.’ But I showed I could bang around with them.”
Martin began to apply himself in the weight room, and found a place he could excel physically to match the hard work he put into the classroom. He improved his bench press from 165 pounds to 225 by the end of that year, and eventually it topped 300, with his all-time best standing at 315.
Rood, who coaches the body conditioning class that Martin has used to make himself bigger and stronger, said, “His time in the weight room has enabled him to play sports ... He’s the strongest guy on the team, and he’s really fast.”
The strides Martin has made are visible on the football field, where he plays guard on offense and end on defense. They also became clear at an offseason football camp Concrete attends, where Martin won first place in his division for both maximum bench press and endurance bench press.
For the maximum bench, Martin put up 275 pounds, besting his closest competitor by 40 pounds. For the endurance press — where athletes see how many reps of 135 pounds they can complete — he did 33 repetitions, beating the second-place competitor by 12 reps.
Now, with the league schedule approaching next week, Martin and his teammates are gearing up for new challenges.
He’s glad he took on such a big one two years ago when he gave football a shot.
“I like to challenge myself, and football gives me that challenge,” he said.
• Trevor Pyle can be reached at 360-416-2156 or by e-mail at .
