February 10, 2012
Letter to students from Coach Martin
Dear K-State Students,
I reach out to you asking for your help. Five years ago I was afforded the incredible opportunity of becoming the head basketball coach at our great university. This was a lifelong dream of mine. I have worked as hard as I can to bring back the greatness of K-State Basketball.
None of us are perfect. I continue to work at correcting the mistakes I have made. Moreover, I have done things I wish I could take back. However, in life you can't go backward but you can always get better from the lessons. One thing that I have worked hard at improving is the language that I use at games and eliminating these moments. I cannot allow my competitiveness to blind me from the fact that I represent you, the great students of a university of higher education. As a father and an educator, there is no place for this at any event in which I am representing K-State.
This is why I am reaching out to you. I have become aware that recently we have had some fan chants at Bramlage that use profanity. We ARE better than that. We have more class than that. As I work at completely eliminating profanity from my actions, I ask you to help me by not using chants that contain profanity. There is no place in education, or representing K-State, for any of us to use profanity.
As we head into the stretch run of the season, I ask the greatest fan base in college basketball to please help me. I need your help to bring K-State Basketball back to championships, and I also need your help as we represent K-State with the class this university deserves.
Love you all,
Coach Martin