Ron Martin won’t have any problems keeping busy next spring.
A trip down to Peoria, Ariz., to watch the Seattle Mariners at spring training is on the agenda. Martin also plans to spend a lot more time playing golf and tennis.
Plenty of weeds will need to be pulled and bushes will have to be trimmed in Martin’s yard.
But one activity Martin won’t be involved in is coaching the Meadowdale High School baseball team.
After 27 years at the helm of the baseball program, Martin turned in his uniform for the final time last month. He had been contemplating retirement for awhile. Martin finally decided this year it was time to make some changes in his life.
“I’ve been considering it for a few years,” said Martin, a Lake Forest Park resident. “There are a lot of things … I’d like to do. I’d like to be able to go to spring training, which I’ve never been able to do obviously because baseball interferes. I’d like to play golf and to take some time for myself.”
In his final season, Martin again guided the Mavericks to the Class 3A state playoffs. The postseason was nothing new to Martin and his teams, which consistently made the playoffs. Meadowdale won state championships in 1980 and 1991.
While there were some off-the-field issues with this year’s team that disappointed him and were a factor in his decision to retire, Martin had absolutely no complaints about his players’ efforts.
“On the field, they did everything I asked of them,” he said. “They were respectful. They were nice. They were one of my favorite teams.
“I liked the kids … It was a joy to work with them this year.”
Prior to the 2004 season, off-the-field issues had never been a problem for any of Martin’s teams. A maximum of only one player had to be suspended during any one season in the last 26 years.
This year four players were suspended, two due to athletic code violations and two for team rule violations.
“It was just a hard year,” said Martin, who added that he almost felt as if he was losing his influence with his players.
Two factors may have contributed to this lessening of influence. Martin retired from teaching in the spring of 2001 and as a result he did not see his players on a regular basis at school. In addition, the age gap between Martin, 60, and his players was ever increasing.
“I figured I’d lost my influence with the kids to get them to do what they should do,” Martin said.
While Martin questioned the impact he had on his team this past season, some of his former players tell quite a different story about the influence Martin had on their lives.
For Randy Jorgensen, Martin and his late wife Barbara were like a second set of parents. Jorgensen’s father died when he was 8-years-old and Martin served as a surrogate father in many respects.
“He was very influential in many different ways in my life,” said Jorgensen, who played minor league baseball from 1993-99. “He helped me and encouraged me to be a successful person.”
Both Jorgensen, who works as a finance manager at Lee Johnson Chevrolet-Mazda, and Edmonds-Woodway baseball coach Joe Webster described Martin as a coach who demanded the best from his players.
Martin, however, wasn’t the type of coach who would follow a player around at practice to make sure he was doing everything that was expected of him.
“You had to be a hard worker and you had to be self-motivated if you were going to be successful in playing for Ron,” said Webster, a Meadowdale graduate. “One thing he and I have in common is I don’t micromanage my players in practice.”
Webster and Martin share the belief that in order to be successful in baseball, players have to be able to work hard on their own.
Martin never asked his players to do anything that he wouldn’t expect of himself, Jorgensen added.
Jorgensen recalled a picture in the 1989 school yearbook that showed Martin hitting a baseball to some of his players at the start of the season in March. There happened to be about a foot of snow on the ground at the time but that didn’t matter to Martin, who was inducted into the Washington State Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in 1999.
It was all about building his players’ character, Jorgensen said.
“I’ve always had the greatest of appreciation for him,” Jorgensen said. “I know that what he demanded of me in terms of competitiveness and work ethic and everything else (are) also some of the same characteristics that helped me earn second-team, All-American at the University of Washington, play at every level of the minor leagues and have a successful career.
“There’s no question that without his influence with me, I wouldn’t have been as successful as I am, even today in terms of business.”
Jorgensen is one of at least 64 Meadowdale graduates who went on to play baseball at a four-year university after high school.
Martin doesn’t take any of the credit for his players’ success.
“That’s a testament to the kids and maybe they bought into the work ethic idea,” Martin said. “I know that there were several college coaches that said they never had any trouble with the kids from Meadowdale High School that I recommended to them. They always came in and worked hard and didn’t get in trouble. I was very proud.”
Martin had the respect of college coaches because he never compromised himself or his integrity, Jorgenson said. Martin would not recommend a player unless he truly believed in that player’s ability to play at the collegiate level.
“He earned the reputation to the point I think if he talked highly about an athlete, then people would listen, whether it was baseball or anything else,” Jorgensen said.
Martin, who was a pitcher at the University of Washington, had a keen eye for discerning talent. The players Martin made the most demands on were those who possessed above-average talent.
“He wouldn’t let them be satisfied with just being above average,” Jorgenson said. “He was more demanding of them because he knew what kind of a future they had, what possibilities they had in front of them.”
As many coaches do, Martin admitted that he mellowed a lot, especially in the last 10 years of his career. Martin used to really get on his players for mental errors but started to ease up as the atmosphere of coaching changed in recent years.
But what didn’t change was Martin’s desire to bring out the best in his athletes.
Webster witnessed that firsthand when he played for Martin in high school and then when he became coach at Edmonds-Woodway and had to go up against Martin.
“Whenever we played them, we always knew we were in for a battle. His kids were going to play hard and give everything they had,” Webster said. “I don’t think he’s changed that much. Ron is a competitive person. Whether he’s coaching baseball or girls swimming, Ron liked to win and if not, he liked to go out and know that his team played its hardest and had given its best effort.”
The times when Webster saw his former coach get really frustrated were when his players didn’t give their best effort.
“You definitely were going to hear about it,” Webster said.
Martin’s goal was to encourage his players to apply what they learned on the baseball field or in the swimming pool to other areas of their lives.
The ability to concentrate on one activity at a time is one of the keys to success, Martin said.
If one of his baseball players was studying for a chemistry test, Martin would tell him that he shouldn’t be thinking about his girlfriend or what he was going to be doing on the weekend.
“You have to learn to focus on the task at hand,” Martin said. “If you do that and put in more time, you’ll be more successful. Trying to use athletic experiences and relate them to life experiences is something I’ve really tried to emphasize.”
Martin started out as a business education teacher and then later taught mathematics and physical education.
For the first two years of his career in the Edmonds School District, Martin did not coach baseball. He was an assistant coach for cross country and girls basketball at Edmonds High School. He later became an assistant track coach and girls swimming coach at Mountlake Terrace High School. Martin was the head girls swim coach at Meadowdale for 24 years.
Martin’s commitment to the girls swim team saved his life three years ago.
Martin and wife Barbara had decided to go on a cruise with a group of University of Washington football fans. Martin already had paid for the cruise well in advance, but later decided he wanted to continue coaching the girls swim team. Barbara subsequently went on the cruise without Martin.
One of the side trips during the vacation was to the Mayan ruins in Mexico, somewhere Barbara had wanted to visit for a long time. During her first year at Meadowdale Middle School in 1968, Barbara taught about that subject.
“From that point on she always had the desire to go and see the Mayan ruins,” Martin said.
On Sept. 12, 2001, Barbara was on an airplane that was headed from the Caribbean Island of Cozumel to Mexico. Martin was supposed to be on that flight with his wife.
Instead, he was coaching his swim team at the Lynnwood Pool.
At 2:24 p.m. a chill went up and down Martin’s spine. The experience so unnerved Martin that he looked at the clock to see what time it was.
“It said 2:24 and I thought, ‘I’m going to remember that time,’” Martin said. “I had no idea why. Absolutely no idea.”
Martin later learned Barbara’s plane went down at that exact time.
“(At) 2:24 our time, 4:24 Mexican time is when the plane crashed,” Martin said.
The support Martin received from the girls swim team helped him cope with the tragedy. More than half of the swimmers had Barbara as a teacher.
“The girls on the swim team were a godsend,” Martin said.
The bond Martin had with the team, especially the seniors, was the reason he decided not to go on the cruise.
“The young ladies on the swim team were so nice,” Martin said. “That’s why I wanted to stay. They ended up saving my life and then after she got killed they made life much nicer. They always asked how I was doing or gave me a hug or asked if there was anything we can do for you. They were as nice as they could be.”
The association with young people is what Martin will miss the most about coaching. While he enjoyed watching them develop as athletes, Martin was more interested in seeing their transformation into young adults.
Martin hopes that in his 29 years of coaching he made a difference in some athletes’ lives, because they definitely made a difference in his.
“They were almost always upbeat,” Martin said. “They were fun to be around. They were hard working. With young people, there’s always hope.
“They allowed me the opportunity to feel younger than my age.”
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