The Agawam native and 2000 Lahovich Award winner becomes the second-youngest coach in Division I.
Mike Martin Jr. has come a long way from his days starring for the Panthers.Former Cathedral High School star Mike Martin Jr. will be introduced Friday as the new men’s basketball coach at Brown University, his alma mater.
GoLocalProv.com first reported the hiring on its website. Brown athletic director Jack Hayes will make it official at a press conference in Providence, R.I.
Martin will succeed Jesse Agel, who was not retained after a 2011-12 season in which his Bears went 8-23.
At 29, Martin will become the second-youngest coach in Division I basketball. The youngest is Bashir Mason, 28, who was hired two weeks ago by Wagner College of New York.
Martin spent the last six seasons as an assistant at one of Brown’s Ivy League rivals, the University of Pennsylvania. Among the players he recruited is Zack Rosen, the Ivy League’s Player of the Year.
Before taking the Penn job, Martin served as an assistant at Brown for the 2005-06 season.
As a player at Brown, he started for four years and served as co-captain as a senior. His class of 2004 is the winningest in the 100-year history of Brown basketball, posting a 63-45 record, including 39-17 in the Ivy League.
After his graduation, he played one season for Dart Killester in Ireland’s top division of professional basketball.
Martin grew up in Agawam. As a Cathedral sophomore in 1998, he played on a Western Massachusetts championship team. In 2000, he received the John Lahovich Award as the region’s top player.
He comes from a well-known Cathedral basketball family. In 1942, his grandfather, William “Bull” Martin, broke the Western Mass. scoring record with 45 points against St. Jerome’s of Holyoke. The record stood until 1964, when Henry Payne of Commerce shattered it with 64 points against St. Stephen’s of Worcester. That, in turn, was broken in 1991 when current record-holder Travis Best of Central erupted for 81 against Putnam Vocational.
Martin’s father is Mike Martin Sr., a Cathedral athlete of the 1960s. He serves as director of athletics for Springfield’s public schools and chairman of the Springfield Public Schools Athletic Hall of Fame.
Garry Brown can be reached at geeman1918@yahoo.com