Hoops Homecoming
October 7, 2011|Pursuits
When Chris Martin, the new assistant coach of the Elmhurst men’s basketball team, walks from the team’s locker room to the courts in Faganel Hall, he must pass a supersized photo of himself playing for the Bluejays half a decade ago, one of a series lining the corridor. Passing his own framed likeness every day is, Martin admits, “a little weird.” And, he said, the current Bluejays don’t hesitate to give him a hard time about the photo.
Not that Martin minds the teasing. He plays along and fires back. “I tell them, ‘Do things right, and you’ll have your own photo up there someday,’” Martin said after a team workout earlier this week.
Martin did a lot of things right when he was playing for Elmhurst.
A two-time Division III All-American, he scored 1,736 points in his four years at the College, making him the second-highest scorer in school history. In 2005, he became the only player ever to lead the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) in scoring, rebounding and steals in the same season. Martin’s achievements earned him a place in Elmhurst’s Bluejay Backer Hall of Fame, where he will be inducted later this fall.
Part of Martin’s new job is to bring to Elmhurst the sort of gifted players that one day might challenge some of those records. In his office after practice, he leaned forward in his chair and leafed through a computer printout listing several hundred or so high school players identified by Head Coach Mark Scherer and his staff as potential Elmhurst student-athletes. Martin is proving himself a tireless recruiter. In June, not long after starting his new job, he spent 26 days on the road, visiting basketball camps, clinics and summer leagues. His recruiting pitch, he said, is a simple one.
“I just tell them what a huge difference Elmhurst has made in my life,” he said. “I probably sound like a real salesman because I’m always speaking so highly of Elmhurst. But all I can do is tell them the truth. I’m so passionate about this place.”
Before Martin returned to the College as an assistant coach, though, he found success far afield, playing professionally in Europe. Martin was a standout in leagues in Germany and Luxembourg, winning all-star honors in each of three seasons as a player. But he might be proudest of the season he spent on the sidelines, as head coach of the Bayer Leverkusen Giants of Germany’s Professional B League. He helped lead the team to a spot in the playoffs, and got an on-the-job education in the art of coaching in the process.
“Coaching was more difficult than I thought it would be,” Martin said. “I’d always considered myself a smart player, but as a coach during a game, you’re thinking about substitutions, adjustments, so many things. And things happen fast. I learned a lot in that one season.”
Martin’s return to Elmhurst reunites him with Scherer, who recruited him to the College as a player out of the central Illinois town of Eureka. After graduating from Elmhurst, Martin continued to look to Scherer for guidance. When Martin was deliberating over the opportunity to coach in Germany, he said, it was Scherer who encouraged him to take the job.
“He’s always been a mentor to me,” Martin said of Scherer. “I turn to him for advice and he makes sure I don’t screw up. It’s a great relationship.”
“Chris was fun to coach because he is a talented player, but more than that, I always knew he would exhibit a concentrated effort that would exceed that of 99 percent of our competitors,” Scherer said. “The same applies to having him on our staff. He has brought a level of commitment and intensity to our program that is contagious. When you couple that with an innovative style, you get a great young coach.”
Sometimes it can seem almost as if Martin never left. Shooting around after a recent workout, he said that every once in a while one of the current Bluejays will challenge him to a quick game of one-on-one. Still a competitor, Martin says he has hasn’t been beaten yet.
“I’m right where I want to be, doing what I want to do,” he said. “People ask me about my long-term goals, and this is it, helping this team win championships. They’ll have to carry me out of here.”
