Pepper Martin May Have Been Best Of All

Furman University has had more than its share of legendary sports figures. Betsy King and Beth Daniel led the Lady Paladins to a 1976 national championship in women’s golf. Both women have since excelled as professional golfers and are members of the LPGA Hall of Fame. Frank Selvy’s 100-point basketball game against Newberry in 1954 still stands as an NCAA record, and Selvy went on to a nine-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers.

In Super Bowl XXIII, Stanford Jennings, then a running back for the Cincinnati Bengals, returned a kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown. (He is now a member of the Furman Board of Trustees.) Urging him on from the sidelines was the head coach of the Bengals, Sam Wyche — a 1966 Furman graduate.

Other names come to mind. Golfers Brad Faxon, Dottie Pepper, and Sherry Turner, former Milwaukee Buck Clyde Mayes, football star Bob King (who Clemson’s Frank Howard once called the “greatest end I ever saw”), and Frank Selvy’s basketball teammate, Darrell Floyd, are well known to anyone familiar with Furman sports history. Little known, however, is perhaps Furman’s finest athlete of all: James “Pepper” Martin.

Martin grew up in the Fairforest community near Spartanburg and was a four-sport letterman at Furman from 1937-41, excelling in track, baseball, football and basketball. One of the most beloved athletes of his day, Martin dazzled crowds with his lighting speed and deft moves. At just 5 feet 7 inches tall and 140 pounds, Martin was called the “biggest little man ever to attend Furman University.” Sportswriters fashioned colorful nicknames for him: the “mighty mite,” “sensational comet,” and “purple flash.”

A fierce competitor on the field, Martin was soft-spoken and humble once the game ended. He often deflected reporters’ questions about his individual feats, preferring instead to give credit to his teammates. Popular, studious and gracious, he was the model student-athlete.

As the point guard on the Furman basketball team, Martin was one of the top scorers in the Southern Conference, which at the time included Clemson, South Carolina, and North Carolina. On the gridiron, Martin was the quarterback, team captain, and most valuable player of the 1940 Furman team that defeated North Carolina State and South Carolina.

Martin’s fabled exploits elicited colorful descriptions. “Tough as scrap iron and wiry as a steel spring . . . he is elusive as a greasy pig at the country fair and especially dexterous in escaping the clutches of a big man,” wrote one sportswriter. “Yes sir, he’s a slick article!”

For all of his accomplishments in basketball and football, Martin achieved his greatest fame as a baseball player. As a 16-year-old in 1936, he captained the Spartanburg American Legion team to a national championship. The team’s success brought a renewed sense of community pride and optimism to a city mired in the Great Depression.

Spartanburg hosted the Los Angeles American Legion team for the championship. More than 20,000 fans spilled out of Duncan Park (which had a seating capacity of 5,000) and onto the surrounding hills to view the games. Children climbed trees to get better views.

The teams split the first four contests to set up a dramatic fifth and deciding game, which Spartanburg won 7-2. Martin’s batting average for the series was an amazing .500. The next year—Martin’s last in American Legion play—the second baseman belted an incredible five home runs in one game.

After a stellar baseball career as Furman’s shortstop, Martin played two seasons with the Columbia Reds. In 1942 he hit .333, was named to the South Atlantic League All-Star team, and seemed destined for the major leagues. Soon thereafter, however, Martin enlisted in the Navy and served overseas during World War II.

After the war, Martin rejoined the Reds organization and played well, but he never made it to the big leagues. “The war had robbed him of his big baseball chance,” wrote one sportswriter. Martin retired from professional baseball in the early 1950s and started his own insurance agency in Florence. He has since been named to the South Carolina Hall of Fame and the Furman University Hall of Fame.

Pepper Martin has aged with the same grace he displayed as an athlete. Now retired and living in Greenville, he amazes his golfing partners by routinely shooting scores lower than his age. Not surprisingly, his friends boast more about his accomplishment than he does.