Link Jarrett reflects on the impact of Mike Martin
College baseball lost a legend right before the start of the season with the passing of Mike Martin. That has since led to reflection on his life and career from one of his former players and now successor at Florida State in Link Jarrett.
Jarrett shared thoughts on his former coach ahead of the College World Series. He said that he can hear his affect on his life in every way, whether on the field as a player or coach or off of it in his day-to-day life.
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“I can hear his voice and it probably talks to me more than any other athletically-minded voice could ever speak to me,” said Jarrett. “Like, you hear a lot of people talk and you think about things. I’ve had other great coaches around me in my time but I played for him. I can hear his voice talk to me as a player, I can hear his voice talk to me as a young coach when I coached with him for one season, I can hear his voice talking to his family.”
“I learned so many different things from what is just a remarkable human being,” Jarrett said. “He’s an amazing person in my life. He was like a second father figure to me.
There are few better influences to follow in college baseball than Martin. He spent over 40 years with the Seminoles as an assistant and head coach. Upon his retirement in 2019, he left them and the sport as it’s all-time winningest coach with 2,029. Those four decades also included 17 trips to Omaha and 19 conference titles.
However, before this season, Martin unfortunately passed away at the age of 79. It came after a battle with dementia and happened just two weeks before the first game for Florida State.
Again, if Jarrett was going to follow anyone’s footsteps, Martin is as good of a model as you can pick at the collegiate level. He has since built off the same mold of his former coach in every aspect of his program.
“The times on the field and learning and the foundation of how to play the game at the college level? The college game is different,” explained Jarrett. “It’s not Major League Baseball. This is different. It’s not high school baseball.”
“Each one of those worlds has its own feel to it. Then there’s recruiting and other things that go into it. But my foundation was laid in a lot of those areas by him and I hear his voice,” Jarrett said. “I hear his voice in games of thinking through maneuvers and bullpen management and defensive things and offensive parts of the game.”
With that said, Jarrett also knows that he can’t fully replicate Martin. He has to be his own coach while also realizing that those shoes are nearly impossible to fill to begin with.
“You have to evolve with your personality and style from your foundation. You’re building off of what you learn initially,” Jarrett said. “Then I’m different than – there’s only one of him. There’s only one.”
This season has almost become a dedication of sorts to #11 and his legacy at Florida State. That would make their first-ever national title that much more significant for Jarrett and the Seminoles to win in his name.
“I’m very fortunate to have been around him a lot and I got to spend some time with him and some days where the decline was rapid and I’m very fortunate that I did that,” said Jarrett.
“I can hear his voice in every different walk of my being. It’s an important voice,” Jarrett said.