Minium: Maarten Woudsma a 'Gentle Giant' Off The Field, But A Beast On The Field For ODU Football

By Harry Minium

NORFOLK, Va. – The Woudsma family speaks Dutch exclusively when at their home in suburban Chesapeake, although Peter and Reina Woudsma sometimes smile when they hear their son, Maarten, speak his native tongue.

“He’s fluent in Dutch,” Peter said. “But he speaks with an American accent.”

No surprise there. Maarten, pronounced “Martin.” was born in Amersfoort, Holland just outside of Amsterdam, and is steadfastly proud of his Dutch heritage.

But in many ways, he’s also a red, white and blue, All-American guy.

His parents came to Hampton Roads when Maarten was a toddler. Peter, then in the Dutch Army, was assigned to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s North American headquarters in Norfolk.

“We thought we would be here for a few years and have a great adventure and then would go home,” Peter said.

But after four years he was offered a civilian job at NATO as a technology innovation engineer and accepted. Reina helped open the Norfolk IKEA store a few years ago and still works there.

“The United States is our country now,” Peter said. “This is home.”

Realizing that his life is now also in America, Maarten began the process of becoming an American citizen a few years ago. Last October, after passing required tests, he raised his hand before a judge and was sworn in as an American citizen.

Now a redshirt junior at Old Dominion University, he starts at right offensive guard for ODU’s football team, which plays at James Madison on Saturday in the annual Townebank Royal Rivalry game (3:30 p.m., ESPNU).

Football is a violent game and few are more intimidating than Maarten. Tons of college coaches drooled about the chance to sign him after watching video of him while at Oscar Smith High driving defenders back 15 yards and then drilling them into the ground.

By the time Chris Scott became Oscar Smith’s coach entering Woudsma’s sophomore year, he already had offers from Liberty, Nebraska and half a dozen other colleges, including ODU.

He can be intimidating when he sits down with you for an interview. He has tattoos on his muscular arms – of Anubis, the Egyptian god of death; a Japanese Samurai warrior holding a sword and Zeus, king of the ancient Greek gods.

At 6-foot-5 and 315 pounds, he’s a very large human being. And his accent, well, isn’t just American. It’s pure South Norfolk, the urban community in Chesapeake that is steadfastly proud of its blue-collar, tough guy image.

But sit down with Maarten for a few minutes and you quickly learn he is softspoken with a sharp mind and a solid moral compass. He already has an ODU degree in hand in exercise science and graduated with a 3.6 grade-point-average.

He’s working on a second degree in biomedical sciences. His life goal? To become an orthopedic surgeon, a doctor who fixes knee, ankle and shoulder injuries.

This guy who lays out bone-crushing blocks on linebackers hopes one day to heal broken bones.

That Zeus tattoo? “I read a lot of Greek Mythology in high school,” he said.  

Academics has always been a priority for Maarten, who graduated from Oscar Smith with a 4.4 GPA while studying in that school’s prestigious International Baccalaureate program.

“We’re proud of how hard Maarten has worked,” Peter said. “He has such good discipline when it comes to studying and he has a memory I would kill for.”

He speaks softly and with selflessness and perhaps that’s because he’s a very kind guy.

“He is so polite and so thoughtful,” said Scott, the Oscar Smith coach. “But he also has that protective, primitive instinct. He was like that when protecting his quarterback.

“But he’s a bridge builder who always tries to bring people together. If there’s an altercation, he is the peacemaker.

“He comes back to Oscar Smith as much as he can. He’s on the sidelines for a lot of our games. He cares. He mentors our younger players. He’s just a good human being.”

ODU offensive line coach Alex Huettel says “Maarten gets along with everybody. I don’t know of anyone in our program, anyone on our campus, who doesn’t like him.”

His work ethic, and kind nature, come from his parents. And if your children are truly a reflection of how well you’ve parented, the Woudsmas have been awesome examples for their kids.

Maarten’s older sister, Rianne, recently graduated from ODU with a Master’s degree in aerospace engineering. She's taking a little time off to figure out her next step in life. 

Maarten’s twin sister, Laurie, is enrolled at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.

Maarten said his father is responsible for his football career and his parents for his academic success.

Maarten began playing football when he was eight with the Chesapeake Knights Pop Warner team.

“I had no idea what football was,” he said. “My dad saw something on Facebook for the local Pop Warner league, and he was like, ‘You should try out.’

“And then I went to my first practice, and I hated it. I thought it was the worst thing ever.

“But my dad just kept making me go back. He said I needed to stick with it. And you know what? I fell in love with football.”

His father suggested that he become and lineman, and he turned out to be a two-way starter at Oscar Smith High, where he helped the Tigers win back-to-back state championships as a junior and senior.

His parents, of course, also knew nothing about football.

“My wife and I, we tried to understand the rules, and it took a long time for us,” Peter said. “It is such a foreign game for Europeans.”

It didn’t take long for them to also learn to love this very American game. Maarten played center from an early age and he and his father spent countless hours in their backyard and at playgrounds snapping the ball.

“Like so many fathers who play baseball with their sons, we trained together taking snaps,” Peter said. “It was a great bonding experience for both of us.”

The Woudsmas were team parents from Pop Warner to Greenbrier Middle School right through to Oscar Smith.

“The entire family was very much a part of our program,” Scott said. “They were always around.”

Peter calls their experience at Oscar Smith akin to Friday Night Lights, a reference to the movie and TV show about Texas high school football.

“We really love our years with Friday Night Lights,” he said. “It was like a village get together.”

As their children began to enter college, Peter and Reina began to urge their kids to apply for American citizenship.

“Their futures are in the United States,” Peter said. “We told them they need American passports for all kinds of reasons.”

Maarten realized that was true when he began working as a teenager – he was a line cook at TopGolf in Virginia Beach and worked behind a cash register at a grocery store.

“I got my green card when I was 14 and I thought that was all I needed,” Maarten said. “My parents urged me to get my citizenship, and my father did everything for us, all the paperwork.

“I soon realized they were right. Every time you apply for something there’s a box to be checked that asks, ‘Are you an American citizen?’

“And when the answer is no, it’s like a whole ordeal you have to deal with.”

Ricky Rahne, ODU’s head coach, was among those who wrote letters of recommendation for Maarten.

“He’s such an asset to our team, to our entire program and our university,” Rahne said. “I don’t recall everything I wrote, but I said that he would be an asset as an American. He’s really such a good young guy.”

Maarten said the citizenship test wasn’t that difficult.

“It was just basic civics,” he said. “What are the three branches of government. How many senators represent each state. Who’s the current vice president.”

Once he was sworn in, said the O line required him to stand and repeat the Pledge of Allegiance.

“They were so excited for him,” Huettel said.

Maarten retained his Dutch citizenship – dual citizenship is legal in America – and still feels an affinity for his homeland. While he lived there only briefly, he has grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in the Netherlands.

“I tell people that I’m Netherlands born and 757 raised,” he said. “I’ve definitely become more Americanized as the years went by. But I love to show my pride of being from back home, of being from the Netherlands.”

Huettel said that since becoming a citizen, whether by coincidence or not, “Maarten seems to have come into his own.

“He’s come out of his shell and begun to show us his personality. He’s taken on a leadership role in the offensive line room. He’s playing stronger. He’s playing smarter. He has consistently gotten better.  

 “Maarten has a chance to play in the NFL. Regardless of what he chooses to do in life, he’s going to excel.”

As I read some quotes from others to Peter about his son, he spoke with emotion.

“It makes us proud,” he said. “I’ve always seen Maarten as something of a gentle giant.

“He has a lot of empathy for others. He’s a good person.

“One of the things we hoped for when we decided to stay here in America that our kids would be able to exploit their talent here to the maximum.”

And so far, they have not disappointed.

Minium is ODU’s senior executive writer. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram