Frank Martin has had quite the ride the last month and much has been made of his “Rags to Riches” story. Whether you are a coach who is happy right where he’s at – or if you’re considering the rat-race of climbing the coaching ladder, Martin’s story is inspiring nonetheless.

The article tells of Martin’s humble beginnings at a high school in Miami when he filled in for a JV basketball coach who didn’t show up for a game. He soon found himself leading an undefeated varsity program which propelled him to bigger and better opportunities. Reflecting on his start Martin recently said:

“Those kids needed the kind of guidance, the kind of helping hand, that I’d had,” Martin said of his time coaching JV basketball. “Sure, you watch basketball on TV, you see the coaches, it’s hard not to wonder how they got where they got. But I was doing exactly what I wanted to do. And I was doing it exactly where I wanted to do it.”

CBS Sports also recently published a list of a few jobs Martin has held over the years:

“Martin has been handed nothing over the years: he worked as a change boy at a pool hall; was a restaurant dishwasher; a bus boy; toiled in landscaping; sold newspaper subscriptions door to door. Most famously, his bulgy build allowed him to be a bouncer on the side while he worked toward getting a degree at Florida International so he could, one day, become a varsity basketball coach.”

Share The Frank Martin Story

Every coach has to start somewhere and Frank Martins career path, while non-traditional, shows that dreams can come true with a lot of hard work and dedication. I find that young coaches tend to have the widest eyes and the biggest hopes for being the next Frank Martin. If you know some one who is dreaming of D1 coaching – share this article that tells his story and tell them you believe in the coach they are becoming!