AMHERST – Anya Martin didn’t need to dust, yet she found herself cleaning behind the couch to eavesdrop.
Her husband, new UMass men’s basketball coach Frank Martin, was on the phone a lot, and she needed to find a way to listen. There’s a rule in the Martin household: don’t mention a job or job situation unless it’s real. Frank Martin broke that rule when he let slip to Anya that UMass athletic director Ryan Bamford called him about the school’s open men’s basketball coaching position.
“I didn’t say much to her until (UMass athletic director) Ryan (Bamford) and I agreed to meet. The previous week was a difficult week in my home. I couldn’t drag her emotions into something that could not be real. I had to make sure it was real between me and Ryan,” Frank Martin said.
Frank told her that Bamford called, and Anya responded she knew who it was.
“She reads the internet,” Frank said.
No other school would elicit the same reaction from Anya. She ran track at UMass in the mid-’90s during the school’s men’s basketball heyday.
“Every day I’m waiting like a stalker when he’s on the phone,” Anya said. “When it finally came to fruition, he put it out there, and he was like ‘what do you think.’ Gosh darn, I’ve been waiting. Let’s ride, let’s go, let’s do this.”
She jumped on him, hugged him and kissed him. The demeanor in their house perked up. She wanted to tell everyone but couldn’t yet.
“We went from being tired and down like, ‘what are we going to do?’ to smiling, skipping,” Anya said.
They’re a package deal. The Martins entered the John Francis Kennedy Champions Center for Frank’s introductory press conference Tuesday holding hands. He opened with a story about his first college coaching job at Northeastern in the early 2000s and how much of recruiting is building relationships.
“I identified a UMass record holder to be my first recruit. I identified an Atlantic 10 champion to be my first recruit,” Frank said. “Little did I know that person was going to be my best friend, the mother of my children and the person I respect most in my walk of life.”
Anya held UMass track and field records in the 55-meter hurdles and 100-meter hurdles and won conference titles in those events. She was also part of a 4x100-meter relay team that won a New England championship. After graduating, it took nearly 20 years for her to return to Amherst when she and Frank came for a visit “five or six years ago,” she said.
“I’m a little embarrassed it had taken me that long to come back,” she said.
South Carolina also played a home-and-home basketball series with the Minutemen, visiting Amherst in Dec. 2019. But when she arrived with Frank amidst cheers of welcome, it didn’t feel like so long anymore.
“We’ll lay our heads down tonight with peace that this is going to be home, this is going to be our family,” Anya said.
Once the Martins relocate to Amherst, they’ll strive to make it home for their family and make the program a part of the family, too. Frank said that his teams set community service records at Kansas State and South Carolina, and they’ll set community service records at UMass.
“We’re going to run our program like a family. A lot of people say family. Do you mean family?” Frank said. “We will be here for each other in good and bad.”
The past two years have featured more bad than good at times for the Martins. Frank went through two bouts with COVID-19 and lost his hair on top of being fired at South Carolina. Had it happened last year after the COVID-altered sub-.500 season with the Gamecocks, Frank may have stepped away from the profession for a spell.
“My health was not good. I was beat up personally. I was beat up professionally. COVID kicked my tail pretty good,” he said. “Now my health is great again, and I’m full of energy. It’s all I know. I’ve been coaching since I’m 20 years old. It’s who I am, and I miss that if I don’t coach.”
He arrived in Amherst on Sunday and has largely been led around to unfamiliar buildings through unfamiliar streets. Anya has been one of his tour guides. The campus has changed but not enough to displace her.
“It’s not like the average job you leave and go into the unknown. I’m not going into the unknown,” Anya said. “I am UMass. For me, I’m at home.”
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.