For Yale's 108th gridiron captain, football is like a class and each game like a problem set. You are taught, you learn, you practice and then you are tested.

"The Harvard game is just the final exam," says Eli Captain Martin Martinson.

And the men in blue won't be entering Harvard's stadium cold turkey this year. Yale's disappointing 1-9 season of a year ago helped make this year's team stronger, says the senior center.

"Last year's season drew us all together," Martinson says. "There were so many people shooting us down, that now we stick to each other.

Yale's current 5-3 overall record and 4-2 Ivy mark speaks for the Bulldogs' improvement, and veteran Coach Carm Cozza attributes much of the success to the leadership of the soft-spoken Martinson.

"There are similar qualities in the two," Cozza says of Martinson and last year's captain Tom Giella. "Marty has the same kind of leadership as Tom. He has a way of talking to players and leads by example."

That's the way it always seems to happen with football captains, and the easy-going Martinson echoes that pattern.

"I'm not a real 'rah rah' player and I'm not real vocal," he says.

The Durango, Colo native says he just relies on hard work and the competition of the games to motivate both himself and his teammates.

"The Harvard game itself is a pysche. There's no need to do anything special for it, since it's the last game of the year," he says, adding that, "our class has never beaten Harvard and it has a chance at the [Harvard Yale-Princeton] championship."

Martinson applies his cool perspective to all the season's challenges. "You're working hard when you win and what you lose also," he says, mirroring Giella's credo of competition.

And he attributes this year's improved record to better play coupled with the undaunted work ethic in the face of adversity that is fast becoming Yale's trademark. "We've had more success because of the fact that we never give up," he adds.

Junior running back David Klide's impression of the male Bulldog is consistent with Cozza's view of him as silent but hardworking.

"He [Marty] is usually in the weight room every day after practice. It helps to form a cohesive group on and off the field. He's never giving up. We learned that from last year," Kline says.

Although comparisons between Giella and Martinson surface continually, there are differences.