Danyel Cecil Martin (born July 8, 1975) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wit ...

fullback in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...

(NFL).

Early life

Martin was born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Roc ...

on July 8, 1975. He attended

Evanston Township High School Evanston Township High School (ETHS) District 202, is a four-year public high school occupying a campus in Evanston, Illinois, a north suburb of Chicago along the Lake Michigan shore. ETHS was established in 1883 and serves the city of Evanston ...

in Illinois before going on to play college football at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

for the

Wisconsin Badgers The Wisconsin Badgers are the athletic teams representing the University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin). They compete as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I level (NCAA Di ...

between 1995 and 1999, appearing in the 1996 Copper Bowl, 1998 Outback Bowl and 1999 Rose Bowl, winning in 1996 and 1999. Martin is also a brother of

Phi Beta Sigma Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. () is a historically African American fraternity. It was founded at Howard University in Washington, D.C. on January 9, 1914, by three young African-American male students with nine other Howard students as char ...

fraternity.

NFL career

He was drafted in the sixth round of the

1999 NFL Draft The 1999 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 17–18, 1999, at the Theater a ...

by the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team play ...

. Martin soon became a starter for the Eagles. Martin's two career touchdowns came in the same game, twice receiving from

Donovan McNabb Donovan Jamal McNabb (born November 25, 1976) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for thirteen seasons, primarily with the Philadelphia Eagles. Before his NFL career, he played football a ...

in a 17-20 loss against the St. Louis Rams during the

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

season. Cecil left the Eagles at the end of the

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains independence from Indonesia and ...

season. Martin was an ever-present in the Eagles

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

and

campaigns, all three ending in the team qualifying for the

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eit ...

. In the

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, disintegrated during reentry into Atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an 2002– ...

off season, Martin signed on the practice team for the

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Ra ...

. He was later cut and picked up by the

Tampa Bay Buccaneers The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) NFC South, South divisio ...

, for whom he appeared in one game in

, a 13-33 loss to the

Tennessee Titans The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee. The Titans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division, and play their h ...

in week 16. Martin retired from professional football having played 61 regular season and 7 post season games across his 5 seasons in the game.

Retirement

Currently, Martin works with high school student-athletes across the country educating them on the college recruiting process as an Educational Speaker for the National Collegiate Scouting Association. Martin also often appears on

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It h ...

in the United Kingdom as a studio analyst for their NFL programming. Throughout 2013 and 2014, Martin toured the United Kingdom's

teams to help promote and grow the sport in the country. Martin suffers from

Bell's Palsy Bell's palsy is a type of facial paralysis that results in a temporary inability to control the facial muscles on the affected side of the face. In most cases, the weakness is temporary and significantly improves over weeks. Symptoms can vary f ...

, which affects the left side of his face.

References

External links

CBS Sportsline player profileCecil Martin on Twitter
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Cecil 1975 births Living people African-American players of American football American football fullbacks American expatriates in the United Kingdom Evanston Township High School alumni National Football League announcers Philadelphia Eagles players Players of American football from Chicago Tampa Bay Buccaneers players Wisconsin Badgers football players 21st-century African-American sportspeople 20th-century African-American sportspeople