Coach Bruce Martz during a Blue Devils football game in 1974.
By Scott Morgan
Bruce Martz and football go together like, well, like Bruce Martz and teaching, actually. Both were major pieces of Martz’s life for decades, and at this year’s homecoming game on Oct. 18, both will be formally enshrined as synonymous with his name.
That day, prior to kickoff at 12:40 p.m., Ewing High School will dedicate the football field at its John Housman Athletic Complex to Martz, who served as a teacher in the district for 34 years, and was the head coach of the school’s winningest period in the 1980s.
About the impending honor, Martz is touched in the way you would expect someone to be when given such surprise news. “I knew nothing about it until the superintendent [Michael Nitti] called and told me,” Martz said. “He called and said congratulations. I said ‘Wow, that’s a heck of an honor.’”
A heck of an honor indeed, but not a surprising one when you consider the career it pays tribute to.
“Coach Martz made many lasting contributions and impacted the lives of thousands of student-athletes,” said school board president Carl Benedetti. “Dedicating the field in his honor is a fitting gesture.”
The honor stems from a resolution passed by the school board in July.
“Tradition is very important in any high school,” Ewing’s athletic director, Bud Kowal, said. “Our current coach, Drew Besler, is well aware of the outstanding legacy of Blue Devil football, and was a proponent of this dedication.”
Martz’s career in education and on the field go all the way back to 1962, when he first started teaching. He had just graduated from Trenton State College (now TCNJ), where he went to become a teacher. “But I really went to become a coach,” he said. “I just really wanted to do that.”
In the mid-1960s, the then-newly opened St. Anthony’s High School (later McCorristin and now Trenton Catholic Academy) brought in Martz to teach gym and assist in coaching the football team. Three years later, Martz went to work for the Bordentown Military Academy and coached with Stan Walters and Floyd Little.
At the same time, Martz moved to Columbus, in Burlington County, which is a notable fact because of the drive he took every day for his next job, in Ewing. And in the 1960s and ’70s, there was no highway linking the two towns. You had to go through Hamilton, and all the lights, to get to and from.
The drive alone would be enough to send most teachers scurrying for more local work, but Martz loved the Ewing district and loved the chance to coach there. He began coaching in 1972 and took over the reins of the program in 1977. Three years later, Martz led Ewing to its first state championship. Which, if you look at how the season started that year, is kind of a shock.
By 1981, the St. Anthony’s/McCorristin football team had built an impressive number of losses on the gridiron. And they were Ewing’s first game that season. To everyone’s surprise, McCorristin won, 8-7. Martz and the team responded with 10 consecutive wins. The Blue Devils went on to pound Iselin 28-0 in the opening round of the playoffs, and then won a 21-18 overtime thriller against Somerville for the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III state sectional title.
In 1985, the Blue Devils, under Martz’s stewardship, repeated their 1981 record of 10 and 1. They took out Matawan in the opening round of the playoffs, and won by a field goal for a 3-0 win against Colonia in the title game. “At one point, we were the only public school [in the area] to win two state championships,” he said.
In 1989, Martz stepped down as head coach, though later he assisted Craig Wood with the team. He jokes that in the years he coached, he stood the tests better than the New York Yankees.
“I was the coach in Ewing for about 18 years,” he said. “Meanwhile, the Yankees hired 17 different managers. Well, Billy Martin doesn’t count, they brought him back every other year.”
By the time he left coaching, Martz had amassed a record of 101-64-4
Martz continued teaching and still did some coaching until the late 90s, when he became the school’s dean of students. He held that position until he retired in 2003. Overall, Martz spent 34 years teaching, coaching, and working with students at Ewing High. And all that time, he never aspired to “move up,” as so many people seemed to want him to do.
Most of those questions came from the local press — which is also a large part of the reason why he called it quits. Reporters would call him on Sunday evenings about the team, they’d call him on holidays, they’d call him… well, let’s just say, they called him a lot. And a popular question from them was whether he wanted to move up to coaching at the college level.
Martz’s answer was always no. He had no interest, he said. He liked where he was and that was that. He never got an offer anyway, but he supposes that was because the people who’d offer him a higher coaching position read the papers too and heard him constantly say he didn’t want to go anywhere.
Now 73, Martz is enjoying retirement to the utmost. Other than a little local baseball umpiring, Martz says he’s been up to “hardly anything” these past 10 years. And even the umpiring stopped 5 or 6 years ago.
No more long drives to work, no more Sunday calls from reporters, no more parent-teacher nights. Just hanging out with his wife, who had to raise the family mostly by herself, he said. For years, every August would begin with him saying “I’ll see you at Thanksgiving,” followed by winter training sessions in December for the next season.
Now he spends his days with her, taking trips, enjoying the house, and whatever else seems like a nice thing to do. However much, or however little he’s up to, he’s loving the retired life. And though he did love his work, he has one compelling argument for his life from here on: “When it’s time to retire, it’s time.”
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