28 Facts About Zeke Martin

Zeke Martin was a two-time all-conference quarterback at North Texas State College from 1947 to 1950 and had previously started 1 game for the Texas Longhorns football team in 1944.

Zeke Martin was drafted by the Washington Redskins in 1951 and played professionally for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in Canada during the 1951 season.

Zeke Martin was a three-sport high school athlete, winning honors in each.

In 1944, Zeke Martin was a freshman football player at the University of Texas, backing up the legendary Bobby Layne on a team whose roster, like most school's, was thin due to World War II.

Randolph Field fielded a team of college all-stars that Texas and Zeke Martin had difficulty competing with.

Zeke Martin did not return to the University of Texas, but spent the intervening years involved in World War II and amateur sports.

In 1949, North Texas' first year in the Gulf Coast Conference, Zeke Martin led the conference in passing and made the All-Gulf Coast Conference team.

Zeke Martin went 71 of 179, for 1,416 yards and 18 touchdowns and had an average punt distance of 38.9 yards.

Zeke Martin was not an All-American but did make the All-Conference team for the second year in a row.

Zeke Martin graduated in 1951 with, officially, 2,522 passing yards over his career, but that only includes the last two years because no official records exist before 1949.

Zeke Martin was inducted into the North Texas Athletic Hall of Fame in 1989.

Zeke Martin was a candidate for the North Texas All-Century Football Team.

Zeke Martin was drafted by the Redskins in the 23rd round of the 1951 NFL draft as the 268th pick, but it's unclear if he ever signed a contract or attended camp with them.

Zeke Martin was signed to play professional football with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union, a precursor to the Canadian Football League.

Zeke Martin played in two games for the team in September of 1951, but he was cut on October 1, the league deadline for trimming foreign-born players on the roster down to seven.

Nonetheless, Zeke Martin was paid for a full season of play.

When his pro football career was over, Zeke Martin put his master's degree in education to use and became a high school coach and teacher.

Zeke Martin replaced head coach Walt Parker, who was serving an 18-month stint in the Air Force, for a year as interim head coach in 1952 and then following Parker's return, spent a year as a line coach.

Zeke Martin worked at both the high school and college level officiating games in the Southwest Conference and the Missouri Valley Conference.

In 1960, Zeke Martin started Zeke Martin-Eagle Oil Company which he grew from a single service station to a multimillion-dollar business with over 40 stations.

Zeke Martin owned real estate, a washateria and an apartment building.

Zeke Martin's opponent was none other than Walt Parker, the man Martin had coached under in 1953 and replaced as head coach at Denton the following year.

Zeke Martin lost that race, Parker served for 10 years, and in 1969, Zeke Martin stepped down as Mayor because the unpaid job was taking up too much of his time.

Zeke Martin married his college sweetheart Bettye Lassiter in Houston in 1949.

Zeke Martin was involved in much of the civic life in Denton.

Zeke Martin founded Little League baseball in Denton, served as Director of the Chamber of Commerce, and organized a charity golf tournament for the UNT athletic department that bears his name, among others.

In November 2006, Zeke Martin was driving alone to a retired football coach's luncheon when he was involved in a car accident that claimed his life.

Zeke Martin died in Fort Worth on November 27,2006, and was buried in Denton.