Becky Martin, a 1980 alumna of McDaniel College and for nearly four decades coach of the Green Terror women’s basketball team, died Tuesday evening after a long illness. She was 62.
A stand-out student athlete in both volleyball and basketball, Becky took over the reins of the women’s basketball program in 1981, just a year after graduating from the college, and was a staple on the Green Terror sidelines for 37 seasons prior to her medical leave in 2018. With her career 554-369 record, she is the winningest coach in Centennial Conference history.
Coach Martin led the Green Terror to 18 league playoff berths, one Middle Atlantic Conference division title in 1985-86, its first-ever CC crown and NCAA playoff berth in 2002, a feat she repeated twice in the next three seasons. Her team posted 20-win campaigns in six straight seasons (2001-07) and advanced as far as the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament.
In 2006-07 her team put together a program- and CC-record 19-game winning streak, capturing its first regular-season conference crown and first at-large NCAA tournament berth. In 2009-10, she continued another run, guiding the Green Terror to its ninth consecutive conference tournament and earned her fourth conference championship ring.
In 2013-14, Becky returned her squad to the 20-win club and once again made postseason appearances in the CC and ECAC tournaments. A year later, she added a second regular-season conference crown and at-large NCAA tournament berth while joining the elite ranks of the 500-win club, an accomplishment Maryland’s Senate and House of Representatives recognized with resolutions in her honor.
In January 2019, the college honored Coach Martin by dedicating and naming the court in Gill Center as The Rebecca L. Martin Court.
As a student-athlete at McDaniel, the Westminster native helped the college win three straight conference titles in volleyball (1977-79). A 5-9 center from 1976 to 1980, Becky became the team’s first 1,000-point scorer (1,299), led Western Maryland College to its first conference title in 1979-80, and won the division MVP award as a senior. She still holds program records for scoring average in a season (23.0 points per game in 1979-80) and career (19.1). She also still holds the mark for most points in a game, scoring 39 against Ursinus in the final game of her career.
She has served on many committees, including the ECAC Division III Women’s Basketball Mid-Atlantic Championship Committee, and chaired the Centennial Conference Women’s Basketball Committee and the college’s Sports Hall of Fame Committee, of which she served as master of ceremonies during the induction ceremony for many years.
An avid traveler and lifelong athlete who was always up for a round of golf, Becky relished the outdoors. She scaled Mt. Rainier in Washington state, rafted the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, biked the 180-mile C&O Canal Trail and snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef.
She shared her passion for travel and adventure with her student-athletes, several times taking her basketball team and their families on a whirlwind tour of France for exhibition play and a heavy dose of sightseeing at such iconic stops as Paris, Nice, and Normandy.
A Carroll County, Green Terror, and Middle Atlantic Conference Sports Hall of Fame inductee, she also served as the department’s assistant director of athletics and senior woman’s administrator from 2008 until 2018.
Additional details on services will be forthcoming.
https://www.mcdanielathletics.com/sports/wbkb/2020-21/releases/20210609_martinmemorial
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