Legend from Tallahassee

Everyone knows about the winning records, titles, and achievements of former legendary football coach Bobby Bowden at Florida State, but you don’t hear much talk about college baseball coaching legend from Florida State, Mike Martin. Martin has quietly become the winningest coach of any sport of all time with 2000 plus wins. Martin has been coaching at Florida State since 1980. That is 39 years at the same school. He has been to Omaha in the CWS 17 times, won the ACC tournament and regular season with a combined 21 times, but surprisingly hasn’t won a national title with his incredible and remarkable resume. Martin announced his retirement back in the early spring and FSU fans weren’t sure if this team would make it out of the ACC tournament and get to the postseason. Martin knows a lot about baseball, and I think if you second guess him, he shows you what he and his team are capable of doing. They barely got into the field of 64 for the NCAA regionals. Then they went into Athens a few weeks ago and upset one of the best teams this season, University of Georgia, with ease, winning 12-3 and 10-1 and also defeating FAU handily. FSU advanced to the Super Regional against LSU and clinched a Super Regional title to the 2019 College World Series with a sweep of LSU. This is Martin’s 17th trip to Omaha. Is it the one he will finally get the title? This has a Hollywood story written all over it since they haven’t lost since the series against UGA. Currently, they defeated Arkansas in Game 11-0. In Game 2, they lost 2-0 to Michigan. Now they face elimination and will play Texas Tech at press time. They will have to win out in their bracket to make it to the championship games next week.

With his resume, you would’ve thought that with his talented and many great teams at Florida State, he would have at least one ring in his incredible career at the CWS. With 2,000 plus wins, he has almost 1,000 more than current Duke coaching legend Coach K and also the late Pat Summit who won 1,000 games at University of Tennessee. When I saw UGA drew FSU in their bracket a few weeks ago, I got concerned because even though FSU struggled this year, I had a feeling the players would step up for the great coach in his last season. FSU has produced a many great players in the MLB over Martin’s tenure; one his greatest players has to be Buster Posey, current catcher for the San Francisco Giants, who grew up in Leesburg, GA and has won World Series rings with the Giants in 2012 and 2014 and has World Series MVP awards and NL Golden Glove awards.

He is one of the most respected and admired coaches in the game, and I can see why players want to play for such an iconic coach who has quietly done his job and has made FSU the hotbed for college baseball even without titles. Martin only coached at FSU. He started off as an assistant at FSU in the 1970s and was hired as the head coach in 1980 and never looked back. He did play in the minors before getting into coaching in the early 70s. Martin has a dry sense of humor and always has a good time, but he is all about business if you ask the players. He is like the ‘Godfather of College Baseball’. NCAA baseball won’t be the same without Martin in the dugout next year, but we’re thankful for the last 39 years that has given us some great baseball teams and great mentoring to the players that are now playing in the MLB and other places. There will never be another Mike Martin, not in my lifetime. They’re some great coaches outside baseball like Saban, Belichick, Auriemma, Coach K, and many, many others but I don’t think anyone will ever catch Martin in wins and the mark he has left on a sport. With FSU currently winning in the NCAA tournament, he could go out on top as national champion at the age 75. Tip of the cap to one of the greatest baseball coaches of all time.