Former Panther Sam Martin used to be a soccer player. Two years ago this week, he was a college athlete waiting to hear if his name would be called at the NFL Draft in New York. Now, he is one of the best punters in the NFL.

Martin managed to make it to the game’s highest level despite punting a football for the first time as a senior in high school.

“It was something that was talked about around sophomore year before I played football,” Martin said. “I already had a scholarship to play soccer at Georgia State and so for my senior year I figured why not? It wouldn’t hurt to go out there and kick.”

Martin had been pursued by the coaches, including now-defensive coordinator Brent Moseley, almost every day for two or three years.

“I don’t know if I had any influence, but we just stayed with him every day,” Moseley said. “Finally he came out and he kicked, which turned out well for us, but he could have played whatever position he wanted to in high school.”

After Martin learned the fundamentals, his coaches started telling him almost from the beginning that he had potential and the leg strength for the NFL.

“I had only been kicking for a month or so at that point, so I never really took it too seriously until I started getting college looks,” Martin said. “It became a little more of a reality at that point, and [my coaches] always had faith in me and were always really positive, and they taught me the right attitude.”

Once Martin decided he was going to play football, the soccer scholarship from Georgia State went away, but he was soon courted by Auburn and Georgia.

“They invited me up for a visit to Auburn and I was pretty confident that was where I was going to go, but the scholarship they were talking about ended up not working out,” Martin said. “They told me that it was a preferred walk-on thing, so at that point UGA came into the picture and they also offered me a preferred walk-on there, but because it was in-state, it was a lot cheaper. So at that point it came down to do I want a scholarship at Appalachian State or be a walk-on at UGA?”

Martin weighed his options and didn’t decide immediately, but eventually made his  choice.

“What it came down to were two things,” Martin said. “One, I wanted to go in and play right away and I felt more confident [at Appalachian State] than over at UGA, and two, I really liked the idea of getting away and getting out of Georgia and getting to start over at a different school. I went there on a visit and I just absolutely loved it. It’s a beautiful campus in a great area near Charlotte.”

It looks as if he made the right decision. After redshirting his freshman year, he became the kickoff specialist and punter for the Mountaineers.

“My first two years punting, I would punt it really well in practice, but in games, I never really had the stats that reflected the NFL,” Martin said. “My sophomore and junior year [in college], I knew what I had to do. I knew I had the potential and ability to make it to the NFL. I just had to perform.”

Martin put up the best stats of his college career during his important senior season. In 60 punts, he averaged 45.9 yards, good for third in the nation, and downed 25 inside the 20-yard line, setting a new school record. He was also named FCS Division I Punter of the Year by College Football Performance Awards and was a first-team Associated Press All-American.

“My senior year, I had my best time out of all my years there,” Martin said. “I put up the numbers and stats that got me noticed and throughout my senior year, NFL scouts started coming, and I realized, ‘OK,  now it’s real. I’m an NFL prospect.’ Probably at that point in my senior season was when it got real.”

Martin scheduled private workouts and narrowed it down to a number of teams who were interested or who were in need of a new punter, which included the Vikings, Eagles, Bears, Lions and Bills.

“We analyzed each situation to see where I might go even if I went undrafted,” Martin said. “Maybe a guy was being paid more than the team wanted, maybe a guy was getting a little older or his stats were down from the year before. We narrowed it down from there.”

He impressed the Detroit Lions enough to take a chance on him and they took him with the 32 pick in the fifth round. Martin was the ninth punter drafted since 2010.

“It was like, ‘Is this real?” Martin said. “I knew I had a chance going into it, but when it actually happened, it was just unbelievable. I had basically my whole family and most of my friends there with me just in case it happened, and it was really cool.”

Martin didn’t have too much time to celebrate, though, with all the rookies and new free agents reporting to camp two or three weeks before the rest of the team in May. The rookies also participated in a four-day “rookie camp” where all drafted players along with undrafted rookies were put through a condensed training camp to help ease their way into life as an NFL athlete before some cuts were made.

“We had to go to a lot of seminars in-between over domestic abuse, drinking and driving, those kinds of things that they have to go over with us,” Martin said.

After four tough months of hard work and practice, Martin officially made the Lions’ roster and was their punter heading into week one, a position he has held ever since.

Martin averaged 47.2 yards per punt on 72 punts in his rookie season and was voted to the All-Rookie first team by the Pro Football Writers of America. He was almost voted into the Pro Bowl in his second year after pinning 29 of his 68 punts inside the 20-yard line and averaging 46.1 yards per punt. He was beat out by Kevin Huber of the Cincinnati Bengals and Pat McAfee from the Indianapolis Colts.

“This past year I was a lot more comfortable,” Martin said. “There are certainly times where it doesn’t seem real, like I’ll be in the ice bath with Calvin Johnson and I’ll get out and think, ‘Holy crap, I was just in the ice bath with Calvin Johnson.'”

Although he is considered one of the best young punters in the league, Martin still hopes to get better and improve.

“I’d really like to become a little more consistent and make a Pro Bowl before my contract runs out,” Martin said. He has two more years remaining on his current contract.

Martin may not be the only former Panther to be drafted by the NFL. Former Georgia Tech running back Zach Laskey also has a chance to be drafted later this week when the NFL holds its annual draft starting at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 30, through Saturday, May 2, on ESPN, ESPN 2 and the NFL Network.

Laskey put up impressive numbers at his Pro Day at Tech, running a 4.5-second 40-yard dash while weighing 225 pounds. Compared to the runners at the combine in February, that would be the 15th best time out of 36 running backs while weighing more than 75 percent of them, proving his athleticism.

“I have spoken with a few teams,  Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and New England,” Laskey said. “They all said they were interested and would be in touch.”

Laskey is projected to go anywhere from the fifth round to going undrafted, but in the NFL, nothing is certain until it is.

“I’ll spend time in Atlanta with family and a few friends,” Laskey said. “I’ve seen projections, but they don’t mean anything. I always stay optimistic. Only time will tell.”