Family Helps Martinek Make Giant Decision

It was late, and inside it was loud. The downstairs living room, filled with family and close friends, had grown from a chatty gathering to a party where the conversations were boisterous and predicated on the same question: Where was he going?

Outside, the family talked. Because for Joe Martinek to do this, it had to be the same way he made his last life-changing decision—the choice to take a full Rutgers football scholarship after leaving as the state's all-time leading rusher.

He needed his family's advice.

So when the discussion ended and they walked into the kitchen, Martinek went into another room to have a final talk with his agent, Don Henderson. When he emerged a bit later and told his family he had , a common understanding reinforced the celebration.

"Everything I need is right here," Martinek said.

It's that all-for-one, family-first mindset that has helped drive Martinek, 23, to a level many doubted he would reach, to a height the borough had seen just once before when Dave Yovanovits was selected by the New York Jets in the seventh round in 2003.

Martinek, standing in his garage, draped in Scarlet Knights black and red, motioned to those around him when asked why he chose the Giants over several other teams vying for his talents late Saturday night.

"You see everyone here," he said. "You see family, friends, the town. Everybody can go to a game."

Just the way everyone—from his father to his mother, Roxanne, and his younger brother, Michael—helped Martinek decide on his NFL future.

Saturday began as a regular day for Joe Martinek Sr., who was awake at 3 a.m. and at work at the Newton post office an hour later. But the rest of the afternoon the father spent on the Internet, targeting potential suitors for his son and detailing their needs.

Meanwhile, Martinek, his brother, and a pair of close friends traveled to Farmstead Golf & Country Club in Lafayette. The 5-foot-11, 224-pound running back hoped to dodge the Day 3 draft hoopla by staying as far away from TVs and computers as possible, though he kept his cell phone in his pocket, hoping for a call from a pro team.

But nothing solidified while Martinek was on the golf course, despite hearing from a few teams that there was interest in using a late-round pick on him. So when the four returned to Martinek's house, it was about midway through the seventh round. And then his phone started to ring more often.

Four teams—the Giants, Jets, Houston Texans and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, now coached by his coach for years at Rutgers, Greg Schiano—told Martinek they wanted him.

But the proverbial pen was in Martinek’s hand. So, as he almost always does with decisions of that magnitude, the running back corralled his mother, Roxanne, father and brother outside—away from the noise, the chatter, the speculation.

Eventually, the fact Tampa Bay had drafted pair of running backs and a fullback, which had the potential to push Martinek even farther down the depth chart, and that the Giants made Martinek feel at home proved to be the two biggest football factors pushing him to remain in New Jersey, his father said.

"It's only a 53-man roster," Joe Martinek Sr. said. "There aren't many spots. You have to do whatever you can. With the Giants, Joe is going to have to prove himself. But, you know what, Joe has had to prove himself everywhere he's been."

But family, in the end, might have been the biggest overall reason he picked the Giants.

"Even when he went to Rutgers he wanted to stay local," Roxanne Martinek said, "so that all his friends and family could visit him. And that's what we all did. All his friends and family were at every home game. We were at almost every away game.

"Now that he's with the Giants we're going to be able to se him again. But I said to my husband, 'If he's somewhere cross-country, we're going. I'm going to rent an RV or by an RV and we're going. Because I'm right there with him.'"

His brother agreed.

"As simple as that sounds," Michael Martinek said, "that's what it is. Having everyone there for you, to care for you, that just empowers all of us to want the best for each other.'

So when Martinek emerged from the room after his final conversation with his agent and told his family the decision, they erupted.

"We all exploded," Roxanne Martinek said. "That was a moment."

Another family moment.