Becoming a Horn

Jorge "Coco" Martinez always wanted to play football for the Texas Longhorns.

Now he’s getting his chance.

Martinez, a 2006 St. Joseph Academy graduate, was an All-Valley running back for the Bloodhounds, rushing for 2,194 yards and scoring 35 touchdowns as a senior in 2005.

Martinez was accepted as a walk-on by the Longhorns in January. He played at free safety and on spe-cial teams in Texas’ spring game and was assigned the Longhorns’ No. 29 jersey.

"It’s an opportunity of a lifetime," said Martinez, a 6-foot, 195-pounder who is working out daily this summer at St. Joseph and the Power House Gym.

He plans to return to Austin in mid-July to prepare for the Longhorns’ fall drills.

"I want to take full advantage of it and see what happens," he said. "I know I’m not a blue-chip player like some of these guys, but I’m going to give it my best."

Only a handful of athletes from Brownsville have ever played football at the University of Texas at Austin. They include wide receiver Ivo Goga of St. Joseph in the late 1970s, lineman Gilbert Esteves of Porter in the mid-1980s and running back Tony Ellis of Hanna in the late 1990s.

Also making the Longhorns’ roster in the 1970s were linemen Cesar Moreno of Brownsville High and Damian Alvarez of Hanna.

"It’s great to see Coco getting a chance to be out there with the Longhorns," St. Joseph football coach Hector Garcia said. "It’s a great opportunity for him. He told me, ‘Coach, I miss football. I need to be out there.’ The (UT) coaches had given me a call for information about him and he made it on the team."

Martinez more than proved his abilities as a standout senior running back for St. Joseph in 2005 by re-cording 2,801 all-purpose yards and averaging 8.4 yards per rush while carrying the ball 261 times. The Brownsville Herald’s 2005 All-Metro MVP also caught 24 passes for 527 yards and even completed three of four halfback option passes for 80 yards and two touchdowns as the Bloodhounds went 8-3 and ad-vanced to the TAPPS playoffs.

From time to time, Martinez also played in the defensive secondary for the Bloodhounds and made some key plays.

Now, he’s getting used to football at the NCAA Division I level.

"It’s all about competition," Martinez said. "There are five guys at every position just waiting to show what they can do. If you don’t work hard, there’s always somebody there who wants to take your place.

"It all depends on how much you put into it," he added. "I’m going to try to make the special teams and go from there."

Although he’ll be a sophomore academically this fall, Martinez will be a freshman on the football team. He said there’s a chance that he could be redshirted this year, which would give him four years of playing eligibility beginning with the 2008 season.

"I’ll find out when workouts begin in August whether I’ll be redshirting or if I’ll make the travel squad," he said.

In the meantime, Martinez is following a strict regimen of daily workouts, including agility drills, and diet requirements that every Longhorn player must adhere to throughout the summer. Those require-ments are outlined in a 150-page offseason handbook that each player received before summer began, he said.

"Every two weeks we have to send in a progress report to let the coaches know how we’re doing," Martinez said.

The Longhorns appear to appreciate having Martinez on their roster.

"Jorge is an awesome kid with a lot of enthusiasm and spirit," said George Wynn, an assistant athletic director for football operations who runs the Longhorns’ walk-on program. "He joined the team at the beginning of 2007 through our spring semester tryout. A diligent worker, Jorge is transforming into the ideal student-athlete."

Martinez will soon face demands on and off the field as he is majoring in civil engineering. He said most of the football players take light class loads, but he’ll be taking 16 hours this fall. It won’t be easy considering the time-consuming schedule for football players.

Once school starts, Martinez said the players work out daily from 6-8 a.m., go to classes from 9 a.m.-1 p.m., attend team meetings from 2- 4 p.m. and practice again from 4-6 p.m.

"It’s a tough day, but it’s also truly an honor (to play for the Longhorns)," he said.

Martinez said his time at St. Joseph prepared him well for the challenges ahead at UT. He said he ap-preciates every coach he had at St. Joseph, dating back to his junior high days. They include Tino Villar-real, Bruce Castro, Henry Cadriel and Hector Garcia, he said.

"I’ll always be grateful to them because I can’t thank them enough," Martinez said. "They showed me how to work hard. I’m going to try to do exactly what they taught me."

Martinez said he has already gotten to know some of the players on the team, including quarterback Colt McCoy and wide receiver Limas Sweed.

Martinez is not the only player from the Rio Grande Valley currently on the Longhorns’ roster. Gilbert Zepeda, a quarterback from Pharr-San Juan-Alamo North with senior eligibility, also is a member of the team and wears No. 11.

Martinez said the players are intrigued by his "Coco" nickname, and added that McCoy started call-ing him "Monterrey" because it’s the city in Mexico that the Longhorn quarterback is most familiar with.

"He calls me ‘Monterrey’ and I call him ‘Tuscola’ (McCoy’s hometown)," Martinez said.

All in all, the former St. Joseph standout said he is quite amazed that he is receiving such an opportu-nity to play for the Longhorns. He could have played college football elsewhere on scholarship, but Austin is exactly where he wants to be.

"It’s incredible — the facilities, the players, the coaches — everything," he said.

"I’ve always tried to do my best, and that’s what I’m doing now," he added. "It’s an experience of a life-time that I’m never going to forget."