Force kicker pays dividends on early investment

By Ben Beitzel
Staff Writer
7/9/2008


Before his age hit double-digits, Carlos Martinez learned making kicks makes money.

Coming from an athletic family in Iowa, the Georgia Force kicker grew up playing soccer and, as all good Iowa boys, wrestled. But at age 9, his youth league football coach offered him a deal.

"(He) would pay me $2 if I hit an extra point," Martinez said. "That got me excited to kick."

Nearly two decades later, that coach's investment paid returns. Just not to him.

Before the Force's home playoff game kicked off Monday, Martinez presented the Ovarian Cancer Institute with a check for $6,459. To raise the money, and awareness, Martinez went beyond the $2 of his youth, opting instead to pledge $10 for each converted extra point and he added $25 for each field goal. His total donation came in at $1,245 for a regular season where he made 112 of 127 extra points and was 5 of 9 on field goals. The rest came from donations made throughout the season and by selling T-shirts in the lobby of the Arena at Gwinnett Center at each home game and a pledged match from Force and Atlanta Falcon's owner Arthur Blank.

So when Martinez didn't get a chance to give the Force a game-tying field goal in the final minute of Monday's playoff loss to Cleveland the disappointment extended beyond wins and losses. He did, however, make 10 of 10 extra points.

On the field, Martinez's impact extends to every part of the kicking game. Beyond extra points and field goals, he also converted onside kick attempts late in games against Philadelphia and Tampa Bay, plus recovering his own kick in Monday's playoff game. When he practices onside kicks he aims for a person and usually the target can catch the ball without moving.

"We feel very confident with him going out there," Force head coach Doug Plank said of Martinez. "He has performed at every area of the kicker."

Martinez is not a typical kicker. Early in the season he showed up in Flowery Branch with his hair dyed in three colors stripes. The hair dying stemmed from a lost bet to his brother, Alonzo, who is an ultimate fighter in Nebraska with a UFC qualifying match later this month. Eventually he opted for a Force-blue Mohawk streak. Most kickers chose to be invisible until called upon. They practice alone, only drawing attention before field goals or after missed extra points. The blue streak erased any chance of anonymity between kicks.

Martinez doesn't mind the attention, whether he is kicking or not. He doesn't let his teammates push him around because he's the kicker. Maybe it's his wrestling background, but he pushes back.

"I am kind of a jokester so I try to give the guys a hard time," Martinez said. "I don't think the guys have had a kicker give them a hard time, they are always giving the kicker a hard time. I try to stick up for myself. When someone else makes a mistake they are going to hear from me."

It's that attitude - fighting back, standing out - that brought Martinez to his "Kicking for the Cure" campaign.

A friend of his in Phoenix, Ariz., Colleen Drury, shocked Martinez when she told him doctors had diagnosed her with Stage 3 ovarian cancer.

"She didn't have any signs or symptoms," Martinez said. "It was like no one knew."

Drury had actually been misdiagnosed three times prior to the cancer's discovery and her story is not atypical. According to the Ovarian Cancer Institute, only a quarter of cases are detected before the cancer "reaches the pelvic region." The other 75 percent go the path of Drury.

"Once you see that, it goes to heart a little bit," Martinez said. "This goes on throughout the United States. If this fund can help create an early-detection test, which the Ovarian Cancer Institute is basically (working) on right now ... that is going to be great."

As only a five-year veteran of the arena league, many years remain for Martinez to keep raising money and awareness and he plans to use every one of them.

"Some people try to create awareness and don't have the professional status that I do," Martinez said. "You have to use it while you can and if I can use it in a good way then I am going to take full advantage of that."