Martin Passionate for Duty to Family and Community

May 16, 2016

Frank Martin has never been shy about talking about the importance of the community with himself, his family, and his basketball program. His actions speak louder than his words, and while he has earned several honors for his efforts, that’s not the reason he continuously immerses himself into the community.

“I don’t view life and my job as winning games,” Martin said. “That’s a small part of what I do. I came up as a school teacher where your duties are to impact people from a community every single day. When you are a high school teacher you are impacting the lives of people who live in a community around that school. I’ve always kept that in the back in the mind.

“I’m as competitive as anyone out there, and winning games on game day is something that drives me. It’s something that doesn’t allow me to sleep at night, sometimes even when we win. But that only takes place 30 to 35 times per year. The other 330 days of the year, I have to use my platform to figure out a way to impact people and to create awareness within our team so that as they move forward in life, that they learn not to take, but to give back.”

Martin and his wife, Anya, have three children. With many demands for his time as a coach, his responsibilities to his family carry over into his desire to help others.

“Our own kids have activities and functions where I need to be present,” Martin said. “I have to find time to help them with homework and things you do as a father. We all have the same responsibilities. Just because I work in sports, it doesn’t make it less necessary for me to impact the community. I have a duty to my family, and my family and I want to be a part of this community. We don’t want to be ‘the coach and the coach’s wife,’ or ‘the coach’s kids.’ We want to be the Martin family that is part of the community of Columbia, S.C. That is important to us.”

Among his recent honors, Martin received the Key to the City of Miami (Fla.), his hometown, as well as the key to Miami Dade County. Martin spent 15 years as a high school coach in Miami. While he is proud of the seven state championships he helped the team win as both an assistant and head coach, as well as the 14 players that he helped develop into NCAA Division I student-athletes, graduating all of his players during his head coaching tenure there is what he cherishes the most.

“As coaches, everyone wants to talk about our wins and losses and our overall record, but if that’s the number one thing that we accomplish, then shame on us,” Martin said. “We all come into the world with a willingness to learn, and hopefully as we get older we understand that we have to share that knowledge and make it a better place than when we got started.”

I got into coaching because I had a duty to the young people in my neighborhood the way the older folks in my neighborhood helped me.

Frank Martin

In April, Martin received the 2016 Champion Award, which is a prestigious national honor recognizing leadership in helping save lives and celebrate life through the Coaches vs. Cancer program. Frank and Anya Martin started the B-Ball of the South, a Coaches vs. Cancer benefit, at the University of South Carolina and raised nearly $400,000 over the last three years for the American Cancer Society. Prior to arriving at South Carolina, Martin regularly participated in Suits and Sneakers Week while at Kansas State to raise cancer awareness and show support for the American Cancer Society.

“We’ve put a man on the moon and have overcome almost every other crazy disease in the history of the world,” Martin said about his passion to do his part to combat the disease. “We’ve been fighting this cancer thing for a long, long time. We’ve made tremendous strides, but still we have to continue this fight.

“I’ve lost some dear friends to cancer. My mother in law went through a battle with breast cancer. I see the pain that it causes, not just to the person afflicted with cancer, but to everyone that is around that person. There is a lot of suffering that takes place as that disease just eats at people.”

Martin’s other passion is helping children. The men’s basketball program regularly conducts community service efforts throughout the year centered on children, including visits to the local children’s hospital as part of the 8K in 8 Days campaign over the last two summers.

“Anything dealing with children and education is important to me,” Martin said. “Any event that I can be a part of where it impacts the lives of young ones who are trying to figure out what the next step in life is or searching for direction, I’m all in with that. As an educator, that’s all you do. You try to prepare young people for the challenges of tomorrow and share with them your learning moments and mistakes to help them avoid some of the landmines that I, or someone else, have stepped on.”

It was the educational aspect of coaching that attracted him to the profession early on.

“I got into coaching to coach in the neighborhood that raised me,” Martin said. “I didn’t get into coaching to win games. I got into coaching because I had a duty to the young people in my neighborhood the way the older folks in my neighborhood helped me. That’s what drove me to coach. That’s what continues to drive me every day.”

Martin will be the keynote speaker at a reception hosted by Coaches 4 Character in Greenville, S.C., on May 17 where he hopes to share a message that will impact young people.

“The message is obviously going to be steered towards education and taking advantage of opportunities, and not using excuses as a crutch and not giving in to challenges,” Martin said. “I just want young people to understand that the older you get, the more complicated life can get. If you give in to difficult moments when you are 15, it’s going to be extremely difficult to survive when you are 51.”