Harvey Martin - Early Years

Early Years

In 1967, Martin's junior year in high school, he transferred to South Oak Cliff High School, which had become the first integrated high school in Dallas. That year, Martin suited up for a football team for the first time in his life. The team went 9-1 that year, though Martin was a backup offensive tackle and only played whenever they had a sizable lead. That would change by his senior year, when in the spring game he got a chance to fill in on defense, which eventually convinced the coaches to move him to defensive tackle. By the third game of his senior year he was a starter and by the end of the season he was the best lineman on a 12-1 team that won the Dallas City championship and went on to the state quarterfinals. Still, he was so skinny and so late-blooming that the only college that offered him a scholarship was East Texas State in Commerce (now named Texas A&M University–Commerce).

Outside of Dwight White being his roommate, his first two college seasons playing as a defensive end went undistinguished. But he evolved into the best defensive end in school history. During his senior year in 1972, in route to leading the school to a national title, he was named to the NAIA All-American, All-Texas, and All-Lone Star Conference Teams.

Martin is one of the most recognized names in the history of Texas A&M University–Commerce athletics, who was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 1987. Texas A&M University–Commerce in 2008 started hosting the Harvey Martin Classic where the school's football team plays against another team from the Lone Star Conference.

In 2007 he was selected to the Lone Star Conference’s 75th Anniversary football team and was named the LSC defensive player of the decade for the 1970s. In 2010 he was inducted into the Lone Star Conference Hall Of Fame.