Martin Mayhew sold sodas at Florida State football games in the early 1980s. His route to a defensive back at FSU to a Super Bowl champion with the Washington Redskins took a circuitous route.
“I'm playing JV,” Mayhew said of his early days at Florida High. “They got me playing tight end. I'm not very good at that. So football wasn't looking like it was going to pan out really at that point. I didn't have a whole lot of highlights my first year.”
Then Mayhew began a journey where a series of influential coaches helped his career path. Florida High, then located on FSU’s campus where the medical school is now, hired Art Witters.
“It changed everything for me in terms of football, in terms of my perspective,” Mayhew said. “I grew up a lot as a person playing for Coach Witters. I have tremendous appreciation for him and what he's done in my life, and we're still close to this day.”
Witters went on to coach at Tallahassee high schools like Godby and Chiles. But Witters was also a Florida fan, and tried to help an undersized Mayhew (who moved to defensive back) get a scholarship at Florida.
“I went down there, and I had a good camp, and I met him with a coach down there, and he recruited me pretty hard to Gainesville,” Mayhew said, beginning a funny story that he relayed to the Tallahassee Quarterback Club on Tuesday. “I was getting recruited here (FSU) as well. And that particular (UF assistant) coach started calling me on a regular basis. He called and checked in.”
The conversation, Mayhew said, went along these lines.
Assistant: How much do you weigh?
Mayhew: 153.
Assistant: Good talking to you.
Mayhew: And he would call back in a couple of weeks.
Assistant: How much do you weight now?
Mayhew: I’m 154 now, coach.
Assistant: Well, good talking to you.
Mayhew then discussed a January 1983 night where he and his mom were out shopping for track gear. He walked back in the house and FSU assistant coach Jack Stanton was calling. Stanton said, ‘We have a scholarship for you. Can you be at school on Monday? Can you be at Florida State on Monday?’ … Monday, I went to my high school, signed out with all my teachers. And that night, I was at Coble Terrace (with FSU’s football players).”
He redshirted in 1983, his freshman year. After that season, coach Bobby Bowden wanted to move on from Stanton as defensive coordinator. Bowden’s hire?
“That next year, that coach from Florida that was calling me and seeing how much I weighed and hanging up on me came to Florida State,” Mayhew said. “And that was Mickey Andrews.”
Mayhew and the crowd, which included Andrews, enjoyed a good laugh. Recruiting can be just like that, especially when weighing in on a prospect who is 154 pounds (and listed at 5-foot-8 as a freshman at FSU).
Mayhew spoke for about 15 minutes and fielded an extended Q&A with fans. Below are some highlights.
Mayhew’s coaching influences
From Witters to Bowden and Andrews, Mayhew had good fortune early. And then he was drafted in the 10th round (which it should be noted no longer exists) by the Buffalo Bills. He played for some of the NFL’s best head coaches.
“I got drafted by the Buffalo Bills,” Mayhew said. “I went to play for Hall of Fame head coach Mark Levy. I spent one year, broke my wrist in Buffalo, didn’t play very much. The next year, I went to the Washington Redskins and played for coach Joe Gibbs, Hall of Famer. I was there for four years. In 1993, in free agency, I signed with the Buccaneers. I went and played for Sam Wyche, who had coached two Super Bowl teams. And then my final year in the league, in Tampa, I played for Tony Dungy.”
Mayhew’s coaching influences helped him in what would become a lengthy front office career, first in the XFL and then in the NFL.
“I had some of the best coaching that anyone can imagine in this game,” Mayhew said. “And it made me the player that I became and it made me the executive that I became from watching how those guys coach, knowing how good coaches coach, and knowing what to look for in a good coach.”
When Deion showed up
Mayhew and Eric Williams played early at FSU in 1984. They had plans of being the Seminoles’ corner tandem in future years. But a new corner also stole the show.
“Myself and Eric Williams had been the starting corners for some of those games as redshirt freshmen,” Mayhew said. “And so Eric and I were, in our mind, thinking how we're going to be running this place for the next three years as starters. And then there's a guy named Deion Sanders that showed up. And we said, ‘Somebody might sit down.’ We took turns sitting down.”
Mayhew still had 187 tackles from 1984-87, including 55 as a senior. He also won a Metro Conference 4×100-meter relay title in track with Sanders.
Becoming a pro in Washington
After one season in Buffalo, Mayhew signed as a free agent in Washington. He soon learned from All-Pro veterans on defense as well as Gibbs, who spent two years in Tallahassee as an offensive line coach at FSU in 1967-68.
“An incredible, incredible experience,” Mayhew said. “You walk in there, and you're looking at Darrell Green, you're looking at Dexter Manley and Charles Mann. You’re looking at Joe Gibbs, looking at Doug Williams. That's when I became a pro. That's when I became a real pro, playing with those guys.
“It was truly one of the most special experiences in my life. Just being in DC, being a part of that great football team was really incredible. We went and won the Super Bowl in 1991 and that was incredible as well.”
Moving into the front office, GM seat
When Mayhew retired from the NFL, he began working for the Redskins before joining the XFL in their first season and then connecting with an old Washington teammate, Matt Millen, who became the Detroit Lions’ general manager.
“I worked my way up,” Mayhew said. “I was staff counsel and doing travel team operations and things like that. I worked my way into the salary cap contract negotiation. I did that for several years, and I worked my way to the personnel (side). And when Matt got let go, they made me the interim GM.”
Mayhew had the No. 1 overall pick in 2009, selecting quarterback Matthew Stafford (who is still in the NFL with the LA Rams). He also picked five-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh (No. 2 in 2010) and found a sixth-round steal in defensive back Quandre Diggs in 2015, a Pro Bowl selection who is still playing.
Later, Mayhew was part of the San Francisco 49ers for four seasons (including an NFC title) and back to Washington in 2024 as the Commanders made the NFC title game. What he learned in his NFL career, which included being fired in Detroit, is how tough it is to sustain consistent success.
“One of the biggest issues I think you have in terms of building a team, a lot of times, is your your confidence and your consistency,” Mayhew said. “And being consistent in what you're trying to do as you try to build is the biggest problem we had in Detroit when I was there. Working with Matt for seven years in a row, we changed the coordinator or head coach for seven years in a row. We never built anything. … And that was a challenge that we faced in Washington as well.”
College football programs hiring GMs
FSU hired Darrick Yray in February 2022 as its general manager. College football programs have made GM hires across the country, and it’s now become the norm. Mayhew sees similarities between his jobs in the NFL and those in college football.
“It's very similar to being an NFL GM in that you've got the transfer portal, which is like free agency,” Mayhew said. “And then you've got your 18-year-old kids that are coming in as freshmen, which is like the draft. … I'm hopeful that they'll come up with a salary cap situation. I think there's a lot of competitive imbalance right now. And it's just going to get worse as time goes. …
“I think they're working on a system. I've talked to some people in college football who have indicated they're working on some type of salary cap.”
Mayhew shares appreciation for Andrews
After his college career, Mayhew worked in the offseason for a bank in North Carolina while working out for NFL teams. But when he arrived in Buffalo, he understood why Andrews was so tough on him and FSU’s players.
“When I left here and went to go work at the bank,” Mayhew said. “I was like, ‘Why was that guy so hard on me? Why was Mickey so hard on me. Constantly.’ And then when I got to my first training camp, I was like, ‘Thank God he was that hard on me.’ Because for the rookies that came in, I was the one that was — you know guys say they ‘Got some dog in them?’ ‘I had some dog in me.’ Some other guys didn't have that.”
The Tallahassee Quarterback Club will host events with Kevin Carter on Nov. 4, Taylor Tannebaum on Nov. 18 and a year-end jamboree with Jordan Travis on Dec. 2. Thanks to the QB Club for the photo of Mayhew with Andrews and club president Hugh Tomlinson at top.
