“I thought I would be able to relax and just enjoy the games more, but that hasn’t happened,” he said with a chuckle. “I want to win too much.”
That competitive fire helped Martin lead Southeastern High School to a state title and also guide the Yellow Jackets to new heights.
Cedarville (19-6, 10-1) will shoot for its eighth conference title in his 15 seasons when it hosts Ursuline (20-3, 9-2) in Martin’s final home game at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. Although they still have two more regular-season games next week, the Yellow Jackets would lock up the No. 1 seed in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference and host the league tourney with a win.
But while he’ll have his longtime Southeastern assistant and best friend Jim “Bodie” Lightle sitting beside him as honorary coach — and the game will coincide with alumni weekend, meaning many former players will be attending — Martin is uncomfortable with the focus being on him.
“Let’s get the ‘retirement tour’ over with. We need to win this game. We need our students here. This is a big one,” he said.
The Yellow Jackets won 20 games only twice before Martin arrived in 2001-02 but have averaged 25.6 wins since then with 12 postseason trips, including two NAIA Division-II national runner-up finishes.
Top assistant Kari (Flunker) Hoffman, who will become head coach next season, played for the Yellow Jackets during the transition to Martin and remembered how he earned the respect of the players right away.
“The first couple years, we knew we could be really good, and we realized he could take us places,” she said. “And we were the best team in the nation my junior and senior years.”
Though he was well liked and became a confidant to many players, he also held them to high standards.
“He demanded very specific things out of us,” Hoffman said. “We had to stand certain ways for the national anthem. We had to stand a certain way when he was talking to us. We had to look him in the eye.
“Girls want that in a coach. You want black and white. And he was very good about being that detailed in every aspect of a program — from what we wore on bus trips to where we passed the ball on offense.”
Hoffman, the program’s second-leading career scorer with 2,275 points, hopes next year’s Yellow Jackets will see a little of Martin in her.
“He taught me how to coach them so they’d run through a wall for you — and be excellent in what you do,” she said.
Martin, who turns 62 on Monday, had streaks of 162 consecutive conference wins at Southeastern and 72 straight at Cedarville. But this year’s squad, though it has struggled at times, has captured his heart.
“I love my team,” he said, choking up. “These girls have been great.”
But one thing he won’t miss about coaching at his alma mater is the lengthy road trips. The league footprint spreads through five states.
“That’s something I’ve done: I’ll say, ‘This is the last time I’ll have to make THIS trip,’ ” he said.
“There are some tough places to go for an old guy getting on a charter bus.”
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