Notre Dame Legend Bids Farewell to Football Career
Former Notre Dame offensive lineman Zack Martin recently retired from the NFL after an 11-year playing career that surely will earn him a bust in the Pro Football Hall of Fame before long.
Martin of course started his post-high school football career at Notre Dame where all he did was play offensive line about as well as anyone in program history. He was a key part of the Notre Dame team that went 12-0 in the 2012 regular season and a first round draft pick of the Dallas Cowboys in 2014.
On Wednesday, Martin released a letter in The Players’ Tribune as he officially says goodbye to football.
Zack Martin on Notre Dame Teammates
Something like me and my best buddies from Notre Dame out on the lake at night with a cooler of beers and a bluetooth speaker, singing along to “Colder Weather.” Just getting increasingly louder and more confident until we think we are the Zac Brown Band and people are yelling to us from the shore to please shut it down, for the love of God.
Hey, if you get it, you get it. Not everybody can be a ramblin’ man who ain’t never gonna change.
To me, that’s football. Me, Tyler Eifert, Chris Watt, Dan Fox and Tommy Rees, out at the lake, talking about how the season is going to be, and everything we’re going to accomplish. I feel like God put those guys in my life for a reason. We all lived together in a house for four years at Notre Dame, and it was exactly what you probably imagine. Walls of protein tubs and dirty laundry, basically. It was shameful. I remember trying to smuggle my T-shirts and underwear into the Notre Dame Football laundry loop. It got so bad that I called my mom, like, “Hey, I miss you, Mom. When are you coming up to visit?”
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Notre Dame celebrates a Tyler Eifter touchdown in the 2012 game against Wake Fores
Those guys were put in my life for a reason, and it led me to meeting my wife, who has been such a huge part of this journey. One day, Tyler Eifert invited us all up to his family’s cottage on Lake Gage. His whole extended family was there, and I started kind of talking to his sister, Morgan. We really hit it off, and I don’t know if he was just in denial, or he didn’t see it, but the next morning, it was like a scene out of Wedding Crashers or something….
Everyone’s down at breakfast, and his uncle, who’s a big character, is smiling from ear to ear, and he’s like, “How about Zack and Morgannnnn. Wowwwww.”
I came down the stairs with bedhead, looking for some cereal, and Tyler’s entire extended family is looking at me in disbelief, and Tyler’s uncle is laughing his ass off. He was trolling Tyler so bad. And Tyler, he’s just like….
“No. This is not happening. Shut it down right now.”
It was an uphill battle, that’s for sure.
Martin goes on in the letter to talk about getting drafted by the Dallas Cowboys, his time in the NFL and shares a touching memory of the Cowboys family coming together for him and his wife while his newborn son faced serious medical issues.
Check out the full piece on The Players’ Tribune to read all of it and if you’ve ever wanted to see the Pro Football Hall of Fame in, Martin’s bust will certainly be in there in just a matter of years.
