Doc Martin Gone But Never Forgotten
Doc Martin had long been a Wake Forest legend before I got to Winston in 1978, but I was immediately advised to give him a wide berth. He wasn’t adverse to crawling anybody’s behind, no matter who it belonged to. In that I took the advice, I never got to know him as well as I should have. But there are a lot of people around Wake who knew him well enough to be hurting right now. Doc Martin, who was the athletics trainer at Wake Forest for what was pretty close to forever, passed away yesterday in Fayetteville, leaving behind him about a billion stories—most of which can’t be told in a family newspaper or a blog that’s written for a daily newspaper.
Doc, for whom the Wake Forest practice complex is named, was one of the all-time characters, and he was from another time. His language and overall apparent lack of personal and cultural sensitivity probably wouldn’t be tolerated today, and maybe shouldn’t be. I’m more than content to let you make up your own mind about that. In that regard he was like Frank Howard, the salty football coach of Clemson who said and did things that simply couldn’t be said or done today. But Frank, like Doc, could be so rib-splitting funny that you had to laugh along whether you wanted to or not.
And the more you got to know both, the more you wanted to.
If you knew Doc and have stories, let’s hear them. There might be a couple that I can actually post.
UPDATE:
T. Gary Strickland, who was a student trainer under Doc a few years ago, just called to give me the news. He hadn’t seen my blog yet. Gary absolutely loved Doc, and was one of the many who could see that beneath the gruff exterior there was a heart of gold. Gary told me an amazing statistic, that Doc was the Godfather to 22 children of former Wake Forest athletes or student trainers. Gary also said that during basketball games, it was the job of the student trainers to keep Doc quiet. It was a task that often was simply too much ask.
Back to the main page.
By Dan Collins on 03/07/2010 (1:46 pm)
Comments
A GREAT ONE! HAD A BIG HEART WITH ALOT OF LOVE IN IT FOR WAKE FOREST FOOTBALL—WILL BE MISSED! BILL FAIRCLOTH CLASS OF 1964
BILL FAIRCLOTH on 03/11/2010 (10:56 am)
One has to understand that Doc(or as we referred to him in 1958 as ‘Big Daddy’) was one of the most caring individuals that I ever came into contact with in my life. He was the one that at two o’clock in the morning of my junior year, during the two a day football practices, I had to go to because of a severe pain in my abdominal area. If one thought that that he did not care for his player’s they were completely wrong. I knocked on his door and explained my situation and he said, “get your butt up on the upper bunk and we will wait and see what develops”. It was about six in the morning when he said, “Irwin get up we are going to Baptist and take care of the problem. Making a long story short, it was a case of acute appenditis and they had to do an emergency operation and he was there during the procedure and was there when I came out from under sedation. Ornery and mean as ever and I was so happy to see him I was a mess!! Being a long way from home and no family present he was the greatest site in the world to see!!
For those of us who were present and aware of the situation with Bill Skippon, we all will remember his attention to duty and will always respect him for his compassion to Bill and his family.
To me, he will always be a person of strength and one of respect that played a very important part in my success and shaped my life after graduation form WFU. There will be a special place for “Big Daddy” in the athletic hall in heaven. God Bless you and rest in peace BD!!
Bob Irwin
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Bob Irwin on 03/10/2010 (10:02 pm)
It was Fall baseball practice in 1958 at shortstop when I took a bad hop, relocating my nose. Our Coach, the Bear, said “Sack, that looks pretty bad, go down and see Doc Martin at the football practice field”. I was a bit hesitant to apprach Doc, but when I did, he looked at me and proceeded to grind my nose back to what he perceived as it’s original position. When he finished, he simply stated, “that looks better for an ugley guy. Go to the hospital if it continue to hurt for more than 3 or 4 days”. It did, and I did go to the hospital for a bit more treatment. Later on, Doc commented to me that my nose looked OK, but I was not about to divulge that I had received a bit more treatment. As we all knew, as a Wake athlete, you always wanted to be on Doc’s good side. May God Bless His Soul….BC
Bill Covington(Wake baseball-1958-1962) on 03/10/2010 (12:36 pm)
I remember when I first showed up at Wake that Doc scared me to death. He was big, loud and never seemed to care if freshmen lived or died. I was so wrong!
Spring ball my freshman year I dislocated my jaw and after a week of eating peas I told Doc that it really hurt. He had Dr. Anderson look at it and after a few tests they decided cortisone shots would do the trick. I sat in Doc’s office and the Dr. gave me three shots in the jaw and for some reason after that Doc was forever my friend.
I always considered myself lucky to make it through football with only a few concussions and no operations. I had watched players endure knee surgeries and knew I had been lucky. One fall my roomates face mask broke and the guard went through his upper lip. For a good month I would listen to him spit blood from his upper bunk to a can that was on the floor. Oh for the good old days!
During spring ball before our senior year I broke my arm. I made up for all the surgeries I had missed in the past with this one. I was in the hospital for over a week and during that time had numerous visits from Doc. I would wake up in the middle of the night and see Doc sitting beside me. We would talk and then he would be gone as the pain meds knocked me out. He gave me his phone card and told me to call Pam and my parents as much as I needed. I was from Illinois and had no family in the area except for Sigma Pi Brothers. I really don’t know what I would have done without him.
used22
Lowell Freedlund on 03/08/2010 (12:15 pm)
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