Martin’s leadership marked by character and integrity

By Charlie Barnes, Executive Director - Seminole Boosters

There is a clever bit of software that allows computers to collect, say, a thousand photographs and then arrange those photos, as if they were tiny daubs of paint, to compose a larger image. Recall the familiar photograph of Abraham Lincoln, for example, that gaunt, sad picture taken just days before his assassination. Using this software, the image of Lincoln remains recognizable but is in fact composed of a thousand small reproductions of Civil War photographs, individual pictures of glory, despair and hope.

If we could assemble photographs from the 3,271 baseball games Florida State University has played over 60 years, from the first season in 1948 through 2007, what sort of image might emerge from that collection?

Outfielder Mike Martin

It might look a lot like Mike Martin.

Head Coach Mike Martin

Martin, FSU’s head baseball coach, has worn the Seminole uniform in five different decades, beginning with his arrival as a junior centerfielder in 1965. The very first time he suited up as a Seminole, he got his baptism by fire; the Tribe opened that 1965 season in mid-March with a three-game series against the Miami Hurricanes. FSU won two games and tied the third — and Martin and his Seminoles went on to play in his first College World Series.

As a Seminole player, as an assistant coach, and as head coach since 1980, Martin has worn our colors for 35 of the program’s 60 seasons. He has been in uniform and on the field for 73 percent of all the games Florida State has ever played, and for 76 percent of all the wins. (FSU, by the way, has won 2,383 baseball games over its 60-year history while losing just 878 and tying 10.)

Baseball is part game, part theory. And those who are entranced with baseball as theory are the ones most devoted to the study of its mathematics. Scientists study the rotation of a baseball, for example, to learn how a pitcher makes it curve on its way to the plate. There’s actually a name for the theoretical study of baseball as an objective discipline: Sabermetrics.

Martin innately understands the physics that makes the ball curve. He is a scholar of the game and its numbers. He knows how the sequences of numbers he chooses shape each game. Martin alone calls every play, every pitch, both on offense and defense. He even is a number himself; to the FSU baseball faithful, Martin is simply “11.”

If sabermetrics seeks objective knowledge through the study of baseball statistics, then let’s consider these numbers. Martin has led his Seminoles to NCAA Regional play every year; that’s 28 straight seasons. Of Florida State’s 18 trips to the College World Series in 60 years, Martin has taken them to Omaha a dozen times himself as head coach, plus two more as a player and as an assistant. More than 60 of his players have been named All-Americans, and more than 120 have signed professional baseball contracts.

In his 28 seasons, Martin has won 15 conference championships; he has been named ACC Coach of the Year four times, and Metro Conference Coach of the Year six times prior to that.

Martin owns the second-highest winning percentage among all active Division I coaches, and he ranks fourth all-time in total wins. In 2005, the Seminoles officially dedicated Mike Martin Field. This past January, Martin was inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame.

The numbers are stunning, but some things are more difficult to quantify. There are no numbers for decency, for loyalty to friends, for inspiring others in the way you live your own life. The fact that Carol Martin attends every game and sits behind home plate is quiet testimony to their complete devotion to family and to each other.

Mike Mallardi is Martin’s friend and a volunteer leader of the Bullpen Club. Says Mallardi: “If I ever got into serious trouble, Mike would be the first guy I’d call. He’d also be the last person I’d want to know if I’d done something shameful.”

Martin believes you win a game in the middle innings. Until the middle innings of his own life, Martin will tell you that he could be a rough-tempered fellow. Some years ago, he had an epiphany and embraced his religious faith.

He doesn’t push religion on others, but his influence is felt on the team. A former player told about being in the dugout before a game. “One of my teammates yelled out, ‘Jesus!’ in a real loud and profane manner.”

He said everyone immediately got quiet as they saw Martin lean forward and peer down the bench over the top of his glasses. All he said was: “You better be praying.”

So what about all of those thousands of snapshots of Florida State baseball, of games won and lost but mostly won, of great players and famous coaches and days of glory?

Yes, statistics are important to the story, but so are character and integrity.

As our computer morphs all of those images together, a clear picture does emerge. It is an image of the personality who symbolizes the enduring legacy of Seminole baseball.

He wears the number 11.