MORGANTOWN — After 16 years as an assistant coach under Bob Huggins, Erik Martin is on his way to becoming a head coach.
Martin, 51, accepted the head coaching position at South Carolina State on Monday. The school is expected to introduce Martin in a press conference on Wednesday.
South Carolina State — located in Orangeburg, S.C. — is a member of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and is a Historically Black College and University (HBCU).
“I think at this point, I’m ready to be a head coach,” Martin said on MetroNews Sportsline. “With historically Black colleges getting more notoriety; I just feel like it’s a part of the country I’ve never been. Obviously, I’ll have to have a new recruiting base. Everything about it is a challenge, and I’ve never been one to run from a challenge.”
Martin has been at WVU for the past 15 seasons and he was an assistant for one season at Kansas State under Huggins in 2006-07.
He was a finalist in 2021 year for the head coaching job at Cincinnati, where he played under Huggins and helped guide the Bearcats to the 1992 Final Four.
“You’ve got a thousand assistant coaches at this level, and if you polled them all, they’d all most likely want to have an opportunity to be a head coach,” Martin told The Dominion Post in 2021. “If I was fortunate enough to be able to be the head coach at my alma mater, that would be the cherry on top, but really all I’ve ever asked for is to have the opportunity.”
That opportunity comes a year later with the Bulldogs, who have gone 27-51 over the last three seasons.
Martin replaces Tony Maddox, who was the head coach at S.C. State for just one season. Maddox took over for Murray Garvin, who was fired after 10 seasons. Garvin is currently suing the school with an allegation that the university’s athletic department underfunded the program.
The Bulldogs were 15-16 in Maddox’s lone season.
“I’m just ready. It’s time,” Martin said. “I’ve done enough learning from a Hall-of-Famer. I’m ready to start putting some of my own ideas to work.”
A native of West Covina, Calif., Martin also had coaching stints at a Cincinnati high school and junior college, before getting hired at Kansas State.
TWEET @bigjax3211
