Words Matter For Coach Marty Heilman Who Was Bullied As A Kid
TRIGGER WARNING: A head’s up there is some talk of self harm and eating disorders.
For more information about eating and body image disorders go to NEDA’s site or call 800-931-2237.
Marty Heilman (HILE-man) was born to be a coach. Most people don’t even know his last name. He’s just Coach Marty...
MARTY: I don’t ask to be called that. But I love it. I love being called coach. I love it. Absolutely love it.
SFX: MARTY TEACHING PE
He says it’s his purpose and he takes that sense of purpose seriously with a ferocity even. It’s more than just burpees and dodgeball. Coach Marty teaches critical lessons -- lessons that he learned the hard way -- and kids will remember them long after graduation.
This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.
Marty grew up the youngest of five boys in Chicago. He loved playing soccer. He played mid-field and he was good at it and gave it his all. His dad coached the team and put him on the field a lot.
MARTY: But I grew up kind of short and chubby and I liked the word Husky, which is interesting because my mom used to take me to Sears and we used to shop in the Husky department. I'll never forget that. I will never forget that cause I thought it was fat kid clothes. I got teased about that, you know? In fact, I don't know if he ever saw the TV show, different strokes, they call me the white Arnold.
Back then during practice the coach would call out, “shirts versus skins,” and half the boys would have to take their shirts off to show that they were on opposing teams.
MARTY: Cause that was the thing back in the eighties, it was horrible! And I used to be like, please don't put me on the skin's team, please, please, please, please.
His brothers teased him the most.
MARTY: You know look at the belly, look at the belly, you know, just stuff like that, Poking my belly. He called me and Paul Pillsbury Doughboy. And it's kind of like putting your arm around and rubbing the head type of bullying. But it affected me. It, it, it did affect me.
He was interested in girls but stayed in the friend zone.
MARTY: I was the funny guy. I was a cute, funny guy. Good friend. I didn't have any girlfriends.
Coaches were hard on him too. In high school he put on a little weight but hadn’t grown any taller while his teammates were taller, thinner, stronger and faster than him. He wasn’t the strong player he used to be. So come sophomore year coaches started to tell him he was too slow to play and he needed to lose weight. He was discouraged and thought he’d never look the way society deemed “attractive.”
Then after he graduated from high school he finally grew into his body -- five inches in one year. He started working out and got quick results so he got a job at nautilus center, essentially a gym. And people started to notice he was suddenly taller and in shape.
MARTY: The reaction was like, wow. You know, that's such a big difference that kind of made me feel good, their reaction, the way they felt about me. But from there it just turned into, okay. So if working out is good and not eating is good, then I'm just going to do more of that. Because like I said, I'm all or nothing. So I just started to work out more and more and more and eat less and less and less.
MUSIC
MARTY: But no matter how much I worked out, no matter how little I ate, I would still see the short little fat kid in the mirror. Every time I looked in the mirror and it didn't matter. LAUREL: Were you waking up thinking about it. MARTY: Oh, for sure. Absolutely.
LAUREL: Do you remember back to a time before you were aware of your physical appearance? MARTY: Yes. LAUREL: How, what was that like…? MARTY: Free.
But in his 20s he had his routine:
MARTY: I was basically obsessively exercising, I would run for a couple of hours. And then I'd go to the gym and climb on a stair climber and read through newspapers while I was on the stair climber. and just sweat and sweat and sweat. So I was working out at least eight to 10 hours a day. I couldn't really hold a job. I couldn't really have friends. I couldn’t do any of that. And then I wasn't eating either and it becomes really rigid what you eat. What is a safe food? I would start with like maybe oatmeal in the morning. Just a little bit of oatmeal and then maybe for lunch, a baked potato, and then at a dinner, uh, acorn squash and brown rice.
He knew it was a problem but he couldn’t stop.
MARTY: There was definitely a lot of self hatred and there definitely was, and it was, it was something that I couldn't control. I wish I would go back to that time when I didn’t obsess about exercise and food. I would beat myself up because that's all I would do. That's all I could focus on.
He couldn’t control what people said or thought about him. He wanted to fit in but felt like he’d been labeled an outsider, the fat kid.
MARTY: It does come back to a lot of control for me cause if everything else in your life is out of control, you feel like this is something you can control. And then it just becomes such a, such a pattern and such an addiction that you feel like you have to have it. And then for me it was like, okay, I have to deserve food. So I have to work out really hard just in order to eat anything.
He got a job managing a spa at a resort. He’d get there at 4 a.m. so he could use their stair climber and treadmill. Eventually, he even started continuing his workouts on the job…blowing off people calling to book appointments and missing management meetings.
He was living with his brother Jim Heilman at the time.
JIM: It was kind of a bad thing because it gave him unlimited access unlimited time to just workout. He would come home and he couldn’t walk up the stairs he had to crawl up the stairs because he had worked out so hard.
LAUREL: Did you try to talk to him about it at all.
JIM: We talked and ultimately I called my parents. They hadn’t seen him. They didn’t know. It was fast like a six month period. It went from Marty’s working out a lot to Marty’s got a problem...
Jim tried to get him help but it wasn’t working. Even though Marty didn’t want to be this person he had become, he couldn’t stop.
MARTY: It's a very hard thing to be in. It's a very dark place to be. It is really dark. And you see other people that are enjoying themselves socially with food and moderate exercise and you just wish you could be like that. You just wish you could be like that. And how do they do that? How can they be like that? Because I can't right now.
He was miserable but he didn’t see a way out.
MARTY: I knew it was a problem when I would drive there and I was hoping that I was going to get into a car accident, so I wouldn't have to do it. And I was literally thinking about just taking the wheel and jerking it to the right as hard as I could. And I literally thought about that several times. So I just, so I didn't have to do that.
MUSIC FOR A COUPLE BEATS
But every time Marty’s boss turned around he found him working out and not doing his job. So one day his boss called him into his office.
MARTY: I went into the boss's office and they just said it's not working out. You're not focused on your job. You work out on the clock and we're going to have to let you go. And I just remember at first being that my first reaction was relief. I was like, oh, okay. I don't have to do this anymore. But then it was... in my family, in my family, you don't get fired. You be the best employee they got. And I knew I was going to have to tell my dad, I got fired and why I got fired so that it was kind of fear and disappointment and shame. A lot of shame.
Marty’s parents were disappointed but mostly they were worried and didn’t know what to do.
Jim says around this time another brother was getting married.
JIM: Our parents came back for that when my mom saw him I’ll get emotional but she cried. Sorry it was tough. He looked like a death camp survivor. It was scary.
MARTY: My mom looked at me one time and said, I can't, I can't really stand looking at you. And she didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to say. She actually broke down, crying in a restaurant one time. Cause I was patting butter off a piece of fish.
After he got fired, the eating problems got worse. He ate less and less. He didn’t even have the energy to work out anymore.
One day, his mom told him she was coming over for a visit. She had made him his favorite dessert cherry cheesecake to try to get him to eat. But when they sat down at the table he refused.
MARTY: She didn't really know what to say. I could tell that she was worried. I could tell that was sad … I just, there's no way that I could eat that. I was just petrified to eat it in the touch it just to even take a little bite off of it. I could not do that.
He was essentially starving himself. At 5 foot 10 he weighed 112 with 2 percent body fat. His heart rate was in the 20s. He was all skin and bones but when he looked in the mirror he still saw the short chubby version of himself.
MARTY: ...and I was still pulling out my body and pinching my body.
Marty’s mom was afraid if she didn’t do something drastic, she would lose him. So in September of 1988 she came to his house with the intention of getting him out.
MARTY: I was so weak I couldn't even talk. I couldn’t really even brush my teeth. My mom saved my life. If she didn't come get me? I would not have lasted about three more days because the eating disorder and how much weight I was losing to my body was shutting down... I do remember her coming in the door... She looked incredibly sad and I felt incredibly ashamed.
His liver and his kidneys were shutting down. His mom found a 30-day eating disorder residential program in Scottsdale and put Marty on a plane. He was resistant. He didn’t want to go but was too weak to put up a fight.
When he arrived at the center, which took up a wing of a senior living facility, they searched his bag to make sure he didn’t have diet pills or laxatives. But Marty wasn’t into those. After the bag search the first thing on the agenda was to get him to eat a full meal.
MARTY: There was little saltine crackers and a pat of butter. And I just left it there. I thought I did pretty good. I had everything. They're like, no, you gotta eat that now. Like, how am I supposed to eat that? So they literally had me take butter and put it on two saltine crackers and eat it. That was my first meal there. I'll never forget that.
LAUREL: What went through your mind as you're eating?
MARTY: Oh, just fear, just complete fear and anxiety. And so, no, it wasn't a great thing to do to me, you know? Cause it was incredibly traumatic obviously. I mean, I'll never forget it. And that was 30 over 30 years ago now...And I was just like, no, I'm not going to do it. You know? And I think we sat there for like over an hour.
The program was strict: he had to eat three meals a day and he wasn’t allowed to exercise.
Marty was the only man there out of 15 women. And even though their stories were different from his they were all in this together. They all needed to change their relationship with food.
MARTY: My heart really went out to them. And so then I realized that we were kind of in this together and then I was not alone type of thing...
The program was relentless–no privacy, no excuses. They weighed them everyday to make sure they were gaining weight but Marty had to face away from the scale so he wouldn’t obsess over the number. He knew he was gaining weight and he hated it.
One day, a nurse walked in on Marty doing pushups in his room, so they forced him to sleep in the living area where they could keep an eye on him. He knew he had to figure out a way to get out of there so he learned to play their game.
MARTY: You try to tell them what they want to hear and you hoping you'll get out sooner. And so I was definitely playing that game. And, uh, then I had a breakdown there where I basically destroyed the living room.
LAUREL: You threw a tantrum? Yeah. And MARTY:Yeah. And that was kind of rock bottom and me starting to pull out and pull myself out of there. LAUREL: And so did it get to the point where you, where you started listening to what...
MARTY: And I was started and I started to work what they worked that process, I guess, and really starting to absorb it and really trying to, uh, get something out of all the therapy sessions.
So after 30 days Marty was allowed to leave. He walked out the door of the program 40 pounds heavier. He was alive but all he could think about was shedding the weight. Immediately he went back to over exercising. Only this time he would binge.
MARTY: I was starting to like work out all day or move all day and then just eat at night.
The doctor at the eating disorder program had told Marty he wasn’t college material. So Marty set out to prove him wrong. He moved to Flagstaff and enrolled at Northern Arizona University. Once he discovered he could major in health education the learning came easily.
He learned more about anorexia and body image disorders. He began to understand it as a disease. He also got a job coaching kids basketball.
MARTY: That's when I started to realize that I could make a connection and I could coach, and then I could make a difference and that I could kind of see things maybe a little differently than other coaches do.
That’s when he had found his purpose. He realized he could channel his intensity and passion into doing good, helping kids find confidence through sports, and putting a stop to bullying.
When he graduated from NAU he got a job training at a gym and teaching health. He was teaching kids about positive body image, harmful stereotypes, eating healthy… He even worked with kids one on one who had eating disorders. But privately, his old habits kept haunting him. He was still working out a lot and still obsessing about food and body image.
MARTY: But then I felt like a liar. I felt like I was being inauthentic too for these kids to do, as I say, not as I do. 21 Most of the time when I was talking about nutrition, I felt like a fraud and impostor. I was like, I got this imposter disease.
So he made up his mind to change. He tried several therapists. But they weren’t getting through to him. He read self help books. Nothing really stuck or felt natural. It was finally an auto mechanic he met at the gym that got through to him.
MARTY: I actually have an auto mechanic here in town. Who's also my spiritual advisor and his name is Reggie. And Reggie is awesome.
Reggie came to Marty’s bootcamp fitness class he was teaching.
MARTY: Hey man, how you doing? And it's like, Hey Reggie, I'm doing good. And he's like, are you sure about that? You know? And it's like, ah, you know, and then, and then it's kind of built from there...he could read me.
MUSIC
MARTY: Love and light bro. LAUREL: Is that something he said? MARTY: Yes. All the time love and light bro. And he kind of talks about that, bro, bro. I love you bro. You know, you know, you're an amazing human being bro. Yeah. Yeah. That's in, so it's, he's a bright light, he's an absolute bright light. And uh, I feel healed when I'm around him and in talking with him. He can reach me and he can, uh, he kind of sees through me and he doesn't tell me what I want to hear. You know, he's going to be straight with me.
Reggie taught Marty to forgive himself. Reggie said it’s a daily practice and a choice and gave Marty affirmations to say.
MARTY: I want you to do this. I want you to say this. I love me. I forgive me. I choose to be happy. And I want you to do it three times, multiple times a day, but you got to do it three times. I love me. I forgive me. I choose to be happy.
And each time he says those words to himself he shifts into a place where he can treat himself and others with kindness.
He also started working with adults with special needs.
MARTY: I was tired of being miserable too. I was tired of it. And if I decided that I'm like, okay, I choose to be happy. Then I choose to be happy. I'm done being miserable. One of the reasons why I act so silly and goofy in PE and teach special needs fitness is because I want to be happy.
Marty will go to his body shop or call him up frequently. Another Reggie motto “ease and grace.”
MARTY: I changed my ways with ease and grace. I am going to treat everyone with ease and grace. I'm going to coach with ease and grace. I'm going to treat my students with ease and grace…
PAUSE
LAUREL: Did you ever confront your bullies?
MARTY: My brother. Yeah, it was probably 15 years ago now. Okay. It was part of the therapy. LAUREL: What did he say?
MARTY: He was pretty defensive at first, you know, So just that, that, that it was hurtful and not, I looked up to him and, you know, and, you know, he was definitely a role model of mine and that my words matter. And then just who thought you were being funny, but it really was soul crushing.
Jim, Marty’s older brother, saw things differently.
JIM: The brothers did pick on each other five boys growing up in a small house. To this day we still tease each other. I don't think we ever realized what we were doing to Marty. I would call Paul buffalo butt for no reason at all except I knew it upset him. There was a lot of ribbing I kind of thought it was good natured. I don’t think anyone thought it was mean spirited. He obviously was hearing something we weren’t meaning.
Marty says with time he has forgiven them but still struggles on occasion to feel accepted.
LAUREL: When you see, um, kids teasing or bullying each other, what does that bring up?
MARTY:Well, it breaks my heart because I know what it does and the lasting effect that it can have on the child that's being bullied. I know that those words can last forever and cuts really, really deep. And the bully, the person who says it doesn't even think about it the next hour, what they said, but the person that they said it to will never forget it and they will just hold onto it and believe that it's true. And, um, so it's very, uh, it's, it's kinda, it's, it's painful for me to watch. And so that's where now I have to treat the bully with ease and grace, because now I am being very protective of this student because I've been that student.
You can hear that Marty is passionate about the fact that words matter and you cannot take them back.
Marty says it happened recently. He’d set the gym up with fitness stations for the sixth graders. And one boy couldn’t reach the pullup bar. Marty was walking around making sure everyone knew what to do. And he noticed this boy’s buddy was pointing at him and laughing.
MARTY: Ha ha ha shorty ha ha ha. And I was the short one and the kids just, just, it was so down on himself. Yes. Saw it in his face, just the whole face, everything, expression, energy, everything shifted on it. Everything changed. And at the time I was like, dude, what are you doing? You know, seriously, I got really mad and I got upset. And again, I got defensive because that was me being teased. And then of course I like, okay, okay. Okay. I'm like, dude, no, man, hey, he's going to remember that. Especially from a buddy, you're here to empower him, to lift him up, to cheer him on you think so what he can't reach the bar? He's 11 years old, you know? And I don't care if he's 30 years old and he can't reach the bar, that is nothing to make fun of him about something that he can not control. I'm like, how do you think that makes him feel? How do you think that makes them feel you're supposed to be his friend...LAUREL: How did the kid respond? He felt really bad. And he looked at him. He goes, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry. And I think he did get it. I think he did get it, you know?
MUSIC
MARTY: I get to wake up every day with an opportunity to make a difference in the kid's life. And I will never take that for granted and my words matter so much to them, especially when they, when, when I develop trust and respect with them mutual trust and respect for them. So I'm very careful of my words, and I know that I can help them.
Today Marty says he doesn’t have any urges to over exercise or skip meals. If he goes to the gym, he’s out in an hour. But he prefers to walk his four dogs. He knows he’ll always be a recovering anorexic. His mantras and dogs get him through his difficult moments.
He still avoids mirrors but he’ll stop on occasion to admire one of his 13 tattoos, several of them large portraits of his dogs.
On each shoulder he has tattoos for his mom and dad, who have died.
Over the last 24 years Coach Marty has had a big impact on thousands of kids.
MUSIC
Everywhere he goes he hears…’hey coach!’
MARTY: I was just at the fair. I was waiting in line to buy a ticket and I hear coach Marty behind me, and I turned around and this tall guy, he's got glasses on. He didn't recognize him. And he starts to hug me and I'm like, oh, wow. Okay, cool. Gotta be a former student. And then he took off his glasses and I'm like, okay. So I kind of figured it out who it was. And it was a student that had some problems, you know? And I remember having a meeting with his mom and I was just trying to teach them life lessons. And he was so incredibly grateful. And so incredibly kind with his words, I mean, like really, um, emotional about where he was like, you know, I remember what you taught me. I remember everything that you said. He goes, I just went through a really dark place. He even said to use those words, and I remember what you said, and that helped me to come out. So even though you weren't there with me at the time, you are helping me now.
This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.
Visit 2Lives dot org to find out more about eating disorders. This episode was produced and hosted by me, story edited by Camila Kerwin of the Rough Cut Collective, music from Blue Dot Sessions. Annie Gerway creates original illustrations for each episode. You can see them at 2 lives dot org or on our social sites -- Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at 2 Lives Podcast. And if you like the show please (leave a review or rating at Apple Podcasts. Some people have asked how they can support 2 Lives. There are different ways you can support the podcast. Find out how at 2 Lives dot org.) share it with a friend. We want to bring you more eps and the only way to do that is get our numbers of followers and downloads up.
