State Voyage
Countdown to State: Kirk Martin’s journey from Quitaque to a State Championship game
Josh Koch
Dec 19, 2017, 9:38 am
Coach Kirk Martin of Manvel on the sideline. Vype
Originally appeared on Vype.com.
HOUSTON – Kirk Martin’s love for Texas high school football started in the small West Texas town of Quitaque.
With a population of 601 and just down the road from Turkey, Texas, in between the two towns was Valley High School—a Class 1A program, which Martin watched and helped out with while growing up and eventually played for from 1985-1988.
“I was a football junkie,” Martin said. “I was a football manager when I was in the fifth grade. I rode the yellow dogs and all that stuff. I had an older brother; he was a manager in seventh grade so I was in fifth grade. I went to all the games; I’ve seen so many great games.”
The chase for a state championship from his childhood has carried over into his career.
Martin’s journey has taken him to almost every corner of Texas, including stops in El Paso, Alvin, Odessa—at Permian working for T.J. Mills—Giddings, Alpine—his first head coaching job in 2004—and then Manvel.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” wife of 23 years Caren said about being on this journey with Kirk. “When we first got married he was teaching at a junior high and coaching at a high school. Then we got to move all over Texas. He was an assistant for a while, a coordinator.
“Before we moved to Manvel the longest we lived anywhere was four years and that’s when he was at Alvin High School. The shortest we lived anywhere was eight months. He was the offensive coordinator at Giddings and then he got his first head coaching job at Alpine. We loved living in Alpine. It was in the middle of nowhere but we had so much fun being out there and it was a great place to raise kids. I thought we’d stay there but the job came open and we prayed (about it).”
Along the way there was always success.
At Alvin, Martin was the offensive coordinator when the program last won a District Championship in 1996. At Giddings, Martin helped guide the team to a win against La Grange for the first time in 12 years.
With all of this on his resume, Martin got a chance to build a program from the ground up with Manvel opening.
Since starting to compete in 2008, Manvel has made the playoffs in eight of 10 years, had 10-plus win seasons for eight-straight seasons and made it to the state quarterfinals seven times.
In 2011, the Mavericks made a run to the 5A Division II State Championship game against Aledo. This was Martin’s first chance to capture that title.
Aledo won the game 49-28.
“We’ve been there before and I didn’t know if I’d ever be back again,” Martin said. “Our oldest son (Koda) was a sophomore when we went in 2011 and we didn’t win it. Everybody kept telling me don’t forget to enjoy it. Enjoy the moment, savor the flavor and all that stuff and there was so many different community pep rallies and hoopla stuff and I don’t know if we were as focused as we needed to be. I think the bigness of it really affected us.
“We played tight in the first quarter and for the first half. Offensively we weren’t ourselves. We dropped a bunch of balls and did some things that were uncharacteristic of our football team. I’ve always said if we get to do it again I’m going to make sure our kids are really focused and aren’t worried about the moment.”
That chance for Manvel and Martin comes on Friday against defending state champion Highland Park at AT&T Stadium.
A day after clinching the spot in the title game with a 35-10 win against Angleton, Martin was at home getting ready for the day when something happened that brought him to tears.
“My son (London Harris) that’s at Texas State won state in track and he’s got a state ring,” Martin said. “It was underneath a towel by my sink and Saturday morning I got up early, took a shower and I went over was brushing my teeth and I picked that hand towel up and there was that state ring with that Manvel ‘M’ on the front of it.
“Honestly I just started crying. I was just like it was almost like it was put there for me I just started balling. I was like this thing may actually happen.”
If it does happen it will mark the first-ever football state championship for Manvel High School.
On top of that it would fulfill the dream of the kid from Quintaque, Texas who has lived and breathed Texas high school football.
“I’m so focused right now,” Martin said. “We’ve got to do this.”
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