How this Commerce football player leads the Tigers — and wins hot dog eating contests

This story begins with cow patty bingo and a hot dog eating contest.

It ends with the role that senior Dreylan Martin has had on the Tigers' football program in Mark Hollars' first few months as head coach, but first you should know how the 5-foot-9, 170 pound two-way star scarfed down more hot dogs in a minute on Friday than any of the Tigers' offensive linemen. 

During a football fundraiser, attendees were waiting on show cow El Vira to, well, relieve itself on the massive bingo board that rewarded one lucky winner. The contest was nearly an hour and a half in with no movement by El Vira.

Somebody organized a hot dog eating contest to pass the time, with a crisp $100 bill going to the winner.

They gave Commerce players a minute to stuff their faces, and Martin downed four franks in 60 seconds, about half a hot dog more than his closest competitors.

"The key to it was drenching the hot dogs with a bottle of water before," said Martin, who had seen the strategy on YouTube videos. "I saw that nobody else was doing that, so that might be my chance. I was confident that I could win but I had to go against some of my linemen, so I wasn’t sure. It turned out that I won."

Entering his final year of high school, Martin is leading more than hot dog eating contests. He's taken the main role in uniting the Tigers under Hollars, who was hired to replace Michael Brown in April after a five-year stint at North Cobb Christian.

Brown, the Commerce alum, spent eight years at Commerce before departing for an assistant coaching job at Jefferson and taking highly recruited sophomore son, Sammy, with him.

More:Frustration, family and friendship: Why Michael Brown left Commerce and landed at Jefferson

Martin was the first player to welcome Hollars into the program. He was waiting in the auditorium 30 minutes before the new coach was to introduce himself to the team. 

When Hollars walked in, Martin introduced himself and told the new coach that he was ready to get to work.

"Got to sit and meet him and he was a young man with tremendous energy," Hollars said. "I think he realizes this is his senior year and he realizes that he has to play a role as a leader. He has bought in to what we’re trying to do. He’s been super supportive of everything that we’ve done and I’m excited to see what he’s going to do his senior year."

The moment in the auditorium impressed Hollars and gave him a chance to target the person he knew could help him embed his roots into the Commerce program.

Martin was attempting to move forward with a positive attitude while putting the past behind.

"When coach Brown left it kind of hurt us," Martin said, "but it also kind of helped us because it gave us a chip on our shoulder and gave us a little motivation that one person doesn’t make Commerce football."

More:Blue collar and gritty: Why Commerce views new coach Mark Hollars as perfect football fit

After the success of the Tigers under Brown, Hollars said he needed players to buy in to his approach, even, as he admits, not much is changing as far as schemes go.

Hollars' offense is a triple-option attack, the same as Commerce has used for decades, and the style that Martin rack up 858 yards rushing and 12 touchdowns as a junior.

"As a coach, you may know a little bit of football, but if you can’t get your players to buy in and trust what you’re doing it doesn’t matter about your X's and O's," Hollars said. "To have someone like Dreylan who makes plays on the field, someone that others respect, to have him buy in and say hey coach, what do you want us to do? It’s had a tremendous impact on the whole program."

The Tigers have reached the state playoffs 24 years in a row and lost a tight quarterfinal matchup last season to eventual state champion Irwin County.

Hollars turned North Cobb Christian from a winless team to a Class A Private quarterfinalist in just his third season, which intrigued Commerce's hiring committee when the resumes were laid out on the table.

More:Here are the top 10 Athens-area high school football games to watch in the 2021 season

More:Commerce football legend Bobby Lamb taking on 'building process' as first coach of college program

Now Hollars wants to build on the success that Commerce had under Brown, and Martin has been instrumental in leading the Tigers.

"We just try to be our best each and every day and to also build on the things that coach Brown left with us and keep them here and put them into what coach Hollars wants us to be like and play like," Martin said. "Sometimes change is better and it can be better and then everything will take care of itself."