Hall of Fame Inductees
The 1963 track season was the final one for J. Frederick “Fritz” Martin, who retired after 43 years of service at Wesleyan. Martin’s overall record included 26 winning and only eight losing seasons while his cross country teams won nearly 140 meets.
Coach Martin’s cross country teams won 14 Little Three titles, including 13 in his last 14 years as head coach. His overall record featured 139 wins and 86 defeats. In track, he won 153 meets while losing only 74, while accumulating 11 Little Three titles including seven of his last 12 years at Wesleyan. In total, Martin’s teams won 25 Little Three Championships and 292 meets. One of Martin’s most -outstanding seasons was 1960–-61 when the varsity and freshman track and cross country teams all went undefeated.
At Wesleyan, in addition to coaching track and cross country, he coached football, boxing, and hand ball and was responsible for establishing wrestling as a varsity sport. He also coached some of Wesleyan’s best track athletes in team history, including Hall of Fame runners Bill Brooks ’49 (sprinter) and Spike Paranya ’61 (mile).
Quite the athlete in his own right, Martin shined in his undergraduate years at Oberlin, earning varsity letters in football, basketball, and track. He was 100-yard dash champion of Ohio as well as a top quarter miler and hurdler.
Fritz first came to Wesleyan in 1920 as an instructor in physical education, having just received his bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College earlier that same year. He went on to receive an MA from Columbia University in 1934 and later Martin was Chairman of Physical Education (aka Director of Athletics) at Wesleyan from 1944–-54 while he served as head men’s cross country coach and head men’s track and field coach all throughout his 43 years at Wesleyan (1920–-63). Early in his tenure, Martin was the head football coach (1922–-24) as well as an assistant (1920–-22, 1927–-29).
