Each day of Eagles training camp NBCPhiladelphia.com will focus on different Bird trying to soar at Lehigh.
Eagles running back Martell Mallett went from Arkansas to Canada to Philly and along the way he picked up some hardware and a taste for Jamaican food.
“I went over there and took advantage of it,” the free agent said about playing his first season out of Arkansas-Pine Bluff in the Canadian Football League.
The 6-foot, 210-pounder rushed for 1,240 yards for the British Columbia Lions. He put on such a show north of the border that he won the CFL’s Rookie of the Year award.
Adjusting so well to the CFL was a bit of a surprise. Mallett had never been to Canada and he was impressed with how British Columbia looked.
“Canada is beautiful man -- just the landscape, the area… it’s sunny, the skies are clear but you can look across at the mountains with the ice on top,” he mused.
But for Mallett, playing in Canada was the first time he left the country and an international city like Vancouver exposed the guy from a small Arkansas town to more than just some pretty landscapes.
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“Actually in Vancouver there’s a lot of different cultures,” said Mallett.
That meant plenty of different foods -- including Jamaican food, which Mallett never had until he went north of the border.
“That was my first time eating jerk chicken and curry chicken,” he said with a laugh.
He was being released Saturday but resigned on Sunday so it looks like Mallett could possibly get to sample Philadelphia’s foods as a back for the Birds.
