Bill Martin | |
Birth Date: | 17 September 1887 |
Birth Place: | Wallula, Washington |
Death Place: | Walla Walla, Washington |
Player Sport1: | Football |
Player Years2: | ? |
Player Team2: | Whitman |
Player Years3: | 1910 |
Player Team3: | Notre Dame |
Player Positions: | End |
Coach Sport1: | Football |
Coach Years2: | 1912 |
Coach Team2: | North Carolina |
Coach Years3: | 1930s–1940s |
Coach Team3: | Whitman (assistant) |
Coach Sport4: | Track |
Coach Years5: | c. 1920 |
Coach Team5: | Penn State |
Coach Years6: | 1925 |
Coach Team6: | Harvard |
Coach Years7: | 1934–1969 |
Coach Team7: | Whitman |
Overall Record: | 3–4–1 (football) |
Charles William Martin (September 17, 1887 – March 14, 1978)[1] was an American football player, track athlete, and sports coach. He served as the head football coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for one season in 1912, compiling a record of 3–4–1.[2]
While at Notre Dame, Martin also starred as a split end on its football team. Newspapers in the Chicago, Ill., area named him to their All-America Team. After graduating from Notre Dame, he turned down an offer to play Major League baseball for the New York Giants. He enrolled instead in the Law School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also served as an assistant track coach. The University of North Carolina hired him away as its head football coach, but WWI soon interrupted his coaching career. After serving in the Air Corps as a First Lieutenant, Martin was named head track coach at Penn State, where he placed five athletes on the U.S. Olympic team in 1920. In 1925, he accepted the head coaching position at Harvard, then considered the top track school in the nation.
Returning with his family to the Walla Walla Valley, Martin purchased a ranch and became the head track coach at Whitman for the 1934-35 school year, winning a Northwest Conference title in his first season. Beginning in 1937, his teams won seven consecutive conference crowns. Martin added three more titles to his coaching resume in 1955, 1957 and 1958. He also served as an assistant football coach and Whitman's athletic trainer during the 1930s and 1940s. He retired in the spring of 1969, taking with him numerous coaching honors. His 1966 cross country team placed third in the nation, the same year that he was named National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) regional track coach of the year.
A native of the Wallula and Touchet areas, Martin died in Walla Walla on March 14, 1978, at the age of 90. Whitman's track and field facility, Martin Field, was named in his honor in 1980.https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=oZRfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=_DAMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2108,5077151&dq=martin+and+coach+and+carolina+and+notre-dame+and+whitman&hl=en