Martin honored as Division II Men's Coach of the Year

ASC head coach named national coach of the year for 29th time

NEW ORLEANS - Adams State head cross country coach Damon Martin, whose men's squad won its third straight NCAA Division II National Championship on Saturday, Dec. 4 at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Ky., was named as the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches' Association (USTFCCCA) Men's Coach of the Year, it was announced Tuesday.

Already with a slew of coach of the year honors to his name, Martin has now been named national coach of the year 29 times as the head coach of the Adams State cross country and track & field programs.

Earlier, he had been named as the USTFCCCA's Central Region Coach of the Year for both men's and women's cross country.

Also to his name are a total of 65 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) Coach of the Year awards between men's and women's cross country, indoor and outdoor track & field, including the league's Men's Cross Country Coach of the Year honor from this fall.

The Grizzly men's cross country squad held the USTFCCCA's top ranking from wire-to-wire this season, and have been ranked No. 1 in Division II since the start of the 2008 season, a streak of 29 straight polls. Not only was the national championship the third straight for the Grizzlies, it was also the record-setting eighth for the Grizzlies since joining the NCAA Division II ranks in 1992, putting ASC one ahead of arch-rival Western State.  ASC also holds the NAIA record of 12 men's cross country national championships and has won 20 combined titles, by far the most of any college in the country.

The win also allowed to the Grizzlies to remain undefeated against all Division II competition since the start of the 2008 season, a span during which they have topped 206 such opponents.

The individual ASC runners at the national championships continued to rack up the post-season accolades, as all seven were named All-RMAC, USTFCCCA All-Central Regiona and All-Americans this season.  Each of the seven placed in the top 10 as the Grizzlies dominated the Central Regional meet on Nov. 20, and no ASC runner finished lower than 35th at the Division II National championship race en-route to a team score of 57 points ahead of runner-up Western State's 102.

Leading the bunch was senior Brandon Birdsong (Lubbock, Texas), who earned all-America accolades for the first time since his arrival at Adams State with a fourth place overall finish. He was followed closely by senior Ryan McNiff (Los Alamosa, Colo.), who became just the eighth Grizzly ever to become a four-time cross country all-American while taking his 10th overall, placing sixth.

In the next for the Grizzlies were sixth-year senior and now  7-time all-American Luke Cragg (Leeds, England) and sophomore first-time all-American Craig Huffer (Newry, Victoria, Australia), placing 11th and 14th, respectively.

Sophomore Keegan Calmes (Wind Lake, Wisc.), became an all-American for the third time in his young career, and placed 24th as the fifth Grizzly across the line.
Rounding the ASC squad were sophomore Edwin Cruz (Del Norte, Colo.) in 33rd place and junior Nathan Sellers (La Crescenta, Calif.) in 35th. It was Sellers' third and Cruz's first all-America performance.

Martin, in his 22nd year as the head coach of the Grizzly women's cross country and track and field program and his 15th with the men's, has guided athletes that have won a combined 795 All-America honors, 82 individual national titles and has coached seven national championship relay teams.

His teams have won a combined 25 national titles and 69 RMAC crowns. The Grizzlies are also the only team to have won the NCAA Division II Men's Program of the Year Award, awarded to the team that has the best combined finish at the three Division II national championships in cross country, indoor track & field and outdoor track & field, taking the honor in its first two years (2008-09 and 2009-10).

He has also earned RMAC Coach of the Year honors 65 times during his career at ASC and was inducted into ASC's Athletic Hall of Fame in 2006.  Martin was also selected for the Arkansas Hall of Fame in 2007 and was enshrined into the Sports Hall of Fame at his alma-mater (Arkansas-Monticello) in 2004.  While a runner at UAM, Martin was a 4-time All-American and then came to ASC as a graduate assistant coach in 1985 before serving as interim head men's cross country coach in 1988 while Dr. Joe I. Vigil was coaching the U.S. Olympic team in Seoul, Korea.

In 1989, Martin took over Adams State's women's program.  He was then named as the head coach of the men's program in 1996.  Martin also holds associate athletic director duties at ASC.

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