By Harry Minium
Most of you have probably never heard of Pete Robinson, who was Old Dominion's first and longest tenured wrestling coach.
Coach Robinson was also one of the nicest, wisest and hardest working people I ever met, and he had a big impact on my life. More on that later.
Robinson was named ODU's wrestling coach in 1957, when the school was known as the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary and Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech). He would serve 26 years, taking ODU from Division II and the Mason-Dixon Conference into Division I.
When Robinson finally retired in 1983, he had been ODU's coach for 26 seasons. He coached three Division II national champions and stepped down at the top of his game.
Coach Robinson's last four teams won Virginia State Championships and he also won the 1982 Eastern Regional NCAA tournament. His last team was 10-3 and crushed Virginia, 28-14, and Virginia Tech, 34-6, in its last two matches.
His record of 172 dual meet victories was one everyone assumed at the time would never be broken.
But then, not everyone knew that Steve Martin, the son of famed wrestling coach Billy Martin Sr., would become ODU's coach in 2004.
Billy Martin Sr. was a wrestling legend who won 21 state titles in his 22 years as coach at Granby High School. Billy Sr. was among the first high school coaches elected into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He invented the famed Granby roll, still in wide use today across the world.
The senior Martin passed away in 2007 at age 89.
His four sons – Billy Jr., Wayne and David, in addition to Steve – all were state champions. Steve was a three-time Virginia high school champion who went on to become an All-American at Iowa.
All four were, like their father, great wrestling teachers, and Steve is among the best.
Steve coached at Great Bridge High School for 14 seasons, winning 13 state titles and coaching 40 state champions before he came to ODU.
He's had good success at ODU, especially in 2012-2013, when he sent seven wrestlers to the NCAA tournament and upset three nationally ranked teams in dual meets. In five of the last seven years, ODU's wrestling team ranked in the top 25 nationally for cumulative grade point averages, including a second-place finish to Harvard in 2014.
Coach Martin could reach a milestone in ODU's regular season finale Sunday at Chartway Arena when the Monarchs host Bloomsburg. Should the Monarchs win, Steve would tie Pete Robinson for the most victories in ODU history.
Though reticent to talk about himself, Steve acknowledged that passing Robinson "is a big accomplishment. He was the cornerstone of the program, the one who got things started.
"Anytime you tie or surpass somebody like Pete, it's a big deal."
Martin said he first met Robinson at age 9 while at wrestling camps.
"Pete was an awesome guy," he said. "Everyone loved Pete. He was the golf coach at ODU, too. He did a little bit of everything.
"He did so much to help Old Dominion's image. He was an ambassador for the University."
I met Robinson in 1974 when I was a student at ODU. I searched him out one afternoon in the old ODU field house and asked if I could walk-on the team.
It had been three years since I wrestled at Norview High, where I wasn't particularly good. But I wanted to live out my dream of being a college athlete. He smiled when I finished asking and said, "sure thing."
I still have a tattered "ODU Wrestling" shirt and a workout jumper that I could never fit into today.
At that time ODU didn't offer many scholarships and struggled to fill out all their starting positions. I filled an open slot at 158 pounds in six matches, and can tell you about every light that hung from the ODU field house and William and Mary Hall.
I was pinned every match.
Pete convinced me the following season to pursue my degree and my career aspirations to be a newspaper reporter. He spoke to the team during an early-season workout, but looked at me the entire time.
Focus on academics if your entire heart and soul aren't in wrestling, he said. Don't waste your time. Get on with your life and pursue your dreams.
That was my last practice at ODU.
Alas, I did more harm than good in my one season. As ODU was preparing for the NCAA tournament, I was the sparring partner for standout wrestler Ray Pond, who had been an All-American the previous season.
We both shot for a two-leg takedown at the same time and knocked heads. My head was, and still is, hard as a rock. Ray's, not so much. I opened a huge gash just above his eye and that clearly hampered him in the NCAA tournament and likely cost him a second All-American honor.
I still feel guilty about that and hope one of these days he finally gains admission to the ODU Sports Hall of Fame, an honor he richly deserves. He's one of the few wrestling All-Americans yet to gain entry in the hall of fame.
ODU is a member of the Mid-American Conference, a good league that has long been dominated by Missouri, which wrestles in the MAC because the Southeastern Conference does not sponsor wrestling. Martin hasn't won a MAC title, but has sent 61 wrestlers to the NCAA tournament.
This could be a big weekend for Martin. On Friday and Saturday his son, Max, a Great Bridge wrestler, will compete for a state championship after narrowly losing in the state final last season. Max Martin, a sophomore, won the Eastern Region title last weekend.
Then Sunday, many Martin family members, including brothers Billy Jr. and Wayne, will be at Chartway Arena to hopefully watch him make history.
While tying the record would be a big deal, he said the greatest challenge comes on March 7-8, when ODU participates in the MAC tournament in DeKalb, Ill.
"You wrestle dual meets to get your guys ready for the tournaments," Martin said. "That's what you're supposed to do. That's what wrestling is all about."
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu