Someone must have gone over to the headquarters of the Dallas/Ft. Worth and San Antonio papers and poked a few sportswriters with a stick, just to see if they were still alive. Whoever it was, they managed to roust Mac Engel and Richard Oliver out of a deep slumber, and once the journalists had cleaned up the drool on their desk, they decided to pump out a couple of articles about the Boys.
Mac Engel has an article on 2007 draft pick James Marten, or Jim, as I guess he likes to be called. Engel focuses on Marten’s upbringing and the fact that whenever he played youth sports, the other parents were always convinced that he was older than he claimed. That’s what you get for being bigger than your coaches way back in the 6th-grade. This continued on through high school, until he went to Boston College were he was relieved that he finally found teammates and opponents that were his size.
But what’s really motivating Jim Marten? You might guess football glory, or the spirit of competition, of challenging one’s self to accomplish more than thought possible. Maybe even financial security, or something like that. Naw, that’s kids stuff, Marten has a more down to earth motivation.
"Every day is just a struggle for me to avoid the cubicle," said Marten, a rookie third-round pick out of Boston College. "I don't want to go out in the real world; this is a dream."
He's already completed his undergraduate degree in financial planning. And during the summer before his senior season, he interned at Merrill Lynch in a program at Princeton.
"That's when I realized how much I liked playing football and how lucky I was," Marten said. "I don't know if I could [work in an office] every day."
Yes, he’s using the Office Space motivation! He doesn’t want to end up in a cubicle, thinking of ways to bilk Merrill Lynch out of its money, destroying copier machines to some gangsta rap, and then giving up the whole thing up to work construction.
I like it. The Office Space motivation is strong in this one; I predict big things for the kid. Just be careful of showing your O-face in public!
Richard Oliver decided to take on the new atmosphere at Valley Ranch, post-Parcells. C’mon, Rich, that article is so May, 2007. We’ve already had our rounds on the "We Are Family" atmosphere under Wade Phillips. That train has left the station; we beat that dead horse until it was deader. Ah what the heck, I’m sure it will come up again at training camp, so I’ll give him a pass.