Devin Martin's wrestling career at Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood is a testament to his strength, determination, and unique approach to the sport. Despite facing physical challenges, Martin has become a standout wrestler, inspiring fans and defying expectations.
Infographic about wrestling sport elements
Early Life and Introduction to Wrestling
When he entered Dwight Morrow High School, Martin gave up football and took up wrestling, a sport that seemed ideal for his proportions. He didn’t really start until about age 15 which is unusual, as many wrestlers begin as young as 3 or 4. When he started his freshman year at Dwight Morrow, Martin thought, ‘Why not? I’ll try wrestling,’ but he didn’t like it. In his sophomore year, he still didn’t like it.
Although a standout in wrestling, Devin has played other sports as well. He is one of the best skaters at the Mackay Park Ice Arena in Englewood, and in middle school, he was the nose guard for the Junior Raiders football team, where he earned the nickname “Truck,” because of the force with which he plowed into opponents on the field.
His mother, Wendy Martin, was concerned about letting him play football in junior high. All of the other kids, she thought, were much bigger. What if somebody bowled him over? Martin not only made the team, but he played nose guard. His success knocking down the quarterback earned him the nickname "Truck."
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Overcoming Challenges
Martin doesn't look very intimidating when you first see him step onto the wrestling mat. He is just 4-foot-7. He has skeletal dysplasia, a genetic condition often called dwarfism that impacted his bone and cartilage growth as a child.
Basic wrestling techniques
Martin doesn't see his short stature as a limitation. He uses it as advantage. He is a 132-pound wrecking ball with the speed and power of wrestlers that are 40-pounds heavier and a low center of gravity that leaves even his best opponents at a loss for how to attack him.
Actually, it’s an advantage. A lot of kids in my weight class are pretty tall, so I’m already close to their legs. With my strength, I’m able to get in on them with easy shots. If an opponent attacks his legs -- which, by the way, are so thick they look like they should belong to a heavyweight -- Martin can spring around him before he can recover. And if that opponent tries to overpower him, he can use his balance and strength to stop him.
“Because he's learned to master his body, it works to his advantage,” Taylor said. “He has trained for everyone else, but no one has trained for someone like him. Whenever we hear other coaches trying to coach against him, we think, 'Yeeeaaaah, that's not going to work.'”
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Martin did put in the work. He got stronger and gained several pounds to qualify for the weight category he is now in. By the end of his junior year, we saw that he had the ‘it factor,’” Suchanski said.
“I think Devin is very aware of his stature and that makes him fight even harder,” Wendy Martin said. But that's not him fighting against the world.
High School Success
This winter alone, Martin won almost all of his 30-plus matches, and he won the Garfield Tournament’s 132-pound title and took home the Most Outstanding Wrestler award. The 132-pound senior is the first district champion out of Dwight Morrow since the school revived its wrestling program five years ago, dominating an opponent from powerhouse Bergen Catholic en route to that title as everyone in the gym went bananas.
He expects to keep winning until the referee is raising his arm in Atlantic City in a couple weeks after a state championship. Bet against him? Do yourself a favor and don't.
Last month, more than two dozen students showed up for the “Coach’s Takedown Challenge” at Dwight Morrow. Maroon Raiders wrestling coach Charles Taylor had offered a free dinner to anyone who could bring him down to the mat.
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“A lot of guys think they’re tough,” Taylor said. “This was an opportunity for them to show how tough they are.” While no one managed to take down Taylor - a former wrestling team captain at Wheaton College in Illinois - several participants wound up coming out for his team. By doing so, they joined in the revival of the Dwight Morrow wrestling program.
This winter, Dwight Morrow’s list of promising wrestlers includes juniors Bernard Placide, Le’keil Herring, Orane Evans, sophomores Devin Martin and Sabatian Gonzalez and freshmen Jamel Perez, Charlie Tejada, Sammy Alshameh and Hector Lebron.
Coach Reggie Williams and the Revival of Wrestling at Dwight Morrow
According to Taylor, Dwight Morrow disbanded its program in 1992. The resurrection started three years ago and the Maroon Raiders are now 29 kids strong.
“We’ll have a competitor at every weight class for the first time this season,” Taylor said. “We’re aiming to get over .500. It’s very doable.” Not long ago, it was a pipedream.
Back in 2013, Taylor got a tip from lifelong friend and Paramus Catholic assistant football coach Brian Walker that Dwight Morrow was looking to revive the program. Taylor, an Adjunct Professor of philosophy and religion at Bergen Community College, had made previous inquiries about bringing the program back but this time, he got the green light.
“It was more of a club team that year,” Taylor said. “We had some scrimmages but there were no official varsity matches.” Of the 12 kids who came out, only two came back the following year. And only one of those made it through the season.
Nevertheless, Dwight Morrow competed as a varsity squad for the first time in 23 years. With just a handful of inexperienced wrestlers, the Maroon Raiders took their lumps. Taylor said it was mostly about “teaching the basics” and “encouraging the kids.”
That winter, Dwight Morrow went 0-12 and lost its match against Dumont 81-0. “I felt like I was prepared for it,” Taylor said. “My first year in college, I lost every single match.”
“I told the kids, ‘If you fall down, you have to get back up and come back harder the next time. There’s always another match you can prepare for.’ I think that sunk in with them.”
Last year, seven Maroon Raiders returned, including Stella Martin, Cohere Elliston, Victor Hernandez, Shorosool Shatursun and Stuart Ward. Taylor said these kids “fell in love with the sport” and have been the core of the team ever since.
Late last season, these five helped Dwight Morrow record a landmark victory over Indian Hills. It was the program’s first win in 24 years.
Taylor said his team lost several other close matches last year and that almost every athlete had some measure of success along the way.
“Once they understood that winning was possible, it was work, work, work,” Taylor said.
After the season, Taylor worked even harder to build up his program. This fall, he started substitute teaching at the school in order to recruit more kids. Then he held the “Coach’s Takedown Challenge.”
Most importantly, Taylor started a recreation program for Englewood middle school students in order to establishing a feeder program. It’s already paid dividends in the form of a large group of freshmen on this year’s squad.
Taylor hopes they’ll be part of a program that’s successful in terms of winning and more.
“Wrestling is more than a sport,” Taylor said.
The rumor that Reggie Williams was present when they unlocked the gates at Winton White Stadium in Englewood for the first time is unfounded. After all, the stadium, named for Englewood High School's first track coach and longtime superintendent of schools was built in 1930 and Williams didn't come to Dwight Morrow to teach and coach until four decades later.
But since Williams came to Englewood, fresh from an All-American wrestling career at the University of Nebraska Omaha, no one has spent more time at Winton White Stadium then he has.
Tuesday, the track at the stadium was named for Williams, who coached cross-country, track and field, football, wrestling, and even bowling, for 47 years and more than 135 sports seasons. He retired from coaching in 2016 after leaving teaching 12 years earlier.
"I'm still having trouble understanding how this happened,'' said Williams, who turned 75 recently. "I had no idea this was coming.''
More than 250 people were on hand at the ceremony, including former colleagues of Williams, and many former athletes.
"It's not just the wins that we honor Coach Williams for, it's the lives he helped to save and the relationships he helped to build,'' said Dwight Morrow athletic director Joe Armental, one of several speakers at the event.
Instead of a traditional response at the end of the hour-long ceremony, Williams thanked everyone quickly and asked everyone to join him on a symbolic victory lap around the track. More than half the crowd obliged, including the current Dwight Morrow and Ridgefield Park track teams that had competed a meet right before the ceremony.
Williams went to Hackensack High School as a freshman in the fall of 1960, intending to play football and basketball and run the 440 in track. But after his freshman basketball season, someone suggested he wrestle the next year instead. It was a defining moment.
He did pretty well as a 148 pound sophomore and junior, winning the regionals in 1963, then he switched to 157 for his senior season, finishing second in the state.
He also earned Honorable Mention All-Bergen County honors in football as a senior and was an all-league quarter-miler in track. But the 18 year-old Williams just wanted one thing to do in college.
"I just wanted to wrestle.''
Hometown Fairleigh Dickinson University wanted him but Williams wanted to see the world outside of Bergen County.
"One day, I'm at my house in Hackensack and I look out the window and two black guys I didn't know walked up my driveway, and knocked on my door,'' Williams remembers.
One of them was UNO head wrestling coach Don Benning and the other was Benning's assistant.
"One of my teammates from Hackensack had gone out to Omaha and checked out the school, and told coach Benning about me.'' A scholarship offer soon followed and Williams was headed halfway across the country.
"I absolutely didn't know where Omaha was and I didn't care - I just wanted to wrestle,'' said Williams, who helped Benning build the fledgling NAIA program to a 39-16-3 record in three seasons and a runner-up finish at the 1968 tournament. Williams was a mainstay, wrestling at 152 pounds and earning All-American status. The team went on to win eight national championships in the NAIA and NCAA Division II before dropping the program in 2011.
After graduating with a degree in physical education in 1969, Williams came back to Bergen County and took a job at Englewood, where he hoped to coach wrestling.
Then Maroon Raider athletic director Frank Sabach got other ideas.
"He said I could coach wrestling, but I'd coach football and track and field too,'' Williams said. "I was naive because I didn't even know you got paid for coaching. I just wanted to coach wrestling and teach.''