Remembering the legacy of Prep legend Martorelli

Bill Pelix vivdly recalls the first time he became very familiar with someone who would later become one of his closest friends, namely Phil Martorelli.

“We were playing in a baseball league,” Pelix said. “We had just finished eighth grade. And I knew of Phil, because he was such a great player. The game starts. It was a bright sunny Saturday morning. Phil was playing shortstop where he always played. Someone hit a high pop-up, sky high. And as the ball was coming down, it hits Phil right in the eye and breaks his glasses. We were all scared, because we thought that Phil was hurt bad. In fact, the game was called off at that point. That’s when I met most of the guys.”

Pelix soon learned that many of the players in that game some 60 years ago in Bogota would end up with Pelix at St. Peter’s Prep, including the talented shortstop who unfortunately took one off the face that Saturday.

“We all became best friends,” Pelix said.

But Pelix had a particularly strong relationship with Martorelli, who died earlier this week after a long illness. Martorelli was believed to be 78 years old.

Although Martorelli didn’t catch that fateful pop fly as an eighth grader, he was extremely more successful at Grand and Warren, eventually becoming one of the best all-around athletes in Prep history.

Martorelli was a standout halfback and safety for the Petreans on the football field, leading St. Peter’s Prep to an undefeated state championship season in 1958.

Many people consider that Prep team was the best in the school’s history, featuring legendary names like the late Lou Rettino, who went on to become the architect of the Union High School program that was the best public school squad in New Jersey in the 1970s and 80s.

Martorelli wasn’t the biggest guy in the world, standing 5-foot-8 and weighing about 180 pounds. But he was a dominant runner, running past and over opponents much bigger than him.

“He had tremendous strength and speed,” said Rich Gronda, another close friend and teammate on that fateful 1958 team. “He would take advantage of his size. He was extremely tough. He was literally a man amongst boys.”

Martorelli is one of two Prep football players to earn two Tommy Myers trophies as the Most Valuable Player in the Prep-Dickinson contest that was traditionally played on Thanksgiving morning, before the rivalry was discontinued in 1981. Tim Hawkes. Sr. was the other. Ironically, both Martorelli and Hawkes would go on to the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

In the Prep-Dickinson game of 1958, the Petreans won 27-7, thanks to the exploits of Martorelli, who rushed for 177 yards and two long touchdowns of 61 and 25 yards. It was the second straight year that Martorelli garnered the Myers Trophy, which was like the Hudson County equivalent of the Heisman Trophy. Martorelli rushed for more than 1,000 yards in each of his junior and senior seasons.

Bob Goger was the sports editor of the Petroc, the Prep student newspaper in 1958.

“When Fr. (Raymond) York (S.J.) told me to be sports editor on the Petroc, he said to me, ‘You got the easiest job on the paper...just follow Martorelli season to season,’” Goger said. “And of course, Phil made for great copy; he lit up the sports section and Prep trophy cases all year.  But as we know, the man’s true greatness was to shine for the next 60 years.”

John Massaro was another friend and teammate.

“I recently shared with Phil Martorelli some thoughts about sportsmanship I have also conveyed to my grandkids,” Massaro said. “With all Phil's athletic successes, it was the model he provided in his approach to the games of sports and life itself that stand out in my mind today.  Phil epitomizes the athlete and the person I would want my grandchildren to be.”

From left, Rev. Bob Reiser, S.J., former president of St. Peter's Prep, Rich Gronda '59, Rev. Joe Parkes, S.J. another former Prep president and the late Phil Martorelli

When the legendary Bill Cochrane retired as the head coach of the Prep football team in the early 1970s, Cochrane was asked to name the top 20 players that he ever coached. Of course, Cochrane named Martorelli.

Martorelli was also a phenomenal baseball player, earning a spot on the Prep varsity for four seasons. He was a power hitting infielder who batted better than .400 in each of his three varsity seasons. He batted .455 as a junior with 27 RBI and hit an astounding .560 as a senior with four home runs and 35 RBI. Martorelli was the Hudson County batting champion each year.

Martorelli was not only named to the All-State team in 1959, but he was also honored by the Newark Star-Ledger as an All-Decade player for the 1950s for their Ledger’s Team of the Century that was compiled by respected baseball journalist Bob Behre in 2000.

Martorelli went on to play baseball at Holy Cross, but an injury slowed his progress. He went on to have a fine career in pharmaceutical sales.

Martorelli was inducted into the St. Peter’s Prep Athletic Hall of Fame in 2007 and he was a key member of the 1958 Baseball Team and the aforementioned 1958 Football Team that have also been inducted to the Prep Athletic Hall of Fame. He is the only honoree to be selected as an individual and have a place on two inducted teams, which is an amazing feat.

“I would say he embodied what a Christian man should be,” Pelix said. “I really thought he would live forever. He had such an even keel to him. Nothing ever bothered him. I don’t think anyone ever said a bad word about him. I don’t think Phil ever said a bad word about anyone. He was just a great guy, a fantastic person.”

“He had a great personality,” Gronda said. “He was an amazing athlete.”

Martorelli fell ill in December and never fully recovered. His friends and teammates kept in contact with him all the way to the end. Martorelli and his wife, Lorraine, raised three children in Huntington Station, New York. His legacy will live on forever.

One of Prep’s finest has left us with the remembrance of his enormous legacy,” friend and teammate John Imperial said. “He was a gentleman, an athlete, a scholar and a friend without enemy. I’m certain that Saint Peter rolled out the red carpet for you. You represented him with distinction.”

A true man for others.

Photos courtesy of Mark Wyville, another Prep grad, Class of '76