The community and commitment that got Adrian Martinez to where he is today

CLOVIS, Calif. — Never in more than a decade of teaching had she made a call like this, but Kristi Vincent felt compelled to pick up the phone. Those kids, after all, were like “her children,” she said, and Adrian Martinez, a student in Vincent’s fourth-grade class a few months earlier in 2010 at Valley Oak Elementary School, was about to lose his mother.

So she dialed Adrian’s father, Tony Martinez, who was paralyzed by the thought of telling the 10-year-old boy that his mom, Tony’s wife, Deanna Martinez, might soon die.

“I remember calling him,” Kristi said, “and saying, ‘Hey, it’s Ms. Vincent. I just want you to know, it’s not about you right now. It’s about him. You need to do what’s right for him. I don’t care if you’re scared. I don’t care if you want to shield him. He needs to have his own goodbye.’ ”

Vincent, at age 13, lost her mother to ovarian cancer. She never got that closure. For Adrian, she wanted to eliminate bitterness ahead and regrets that “nobody let him have that time.”

Her courage represented the spirit of a community in central California that refused, over a seven-year period, to let Adrian Martinez fail. Despite the premature loss of his mother, Martinez emerged from adolescence as a strikingly well-adjusted student, athlete and citizen.

Last fall, he starred under new Nebraska coach Scott Frost as the first true freshman quarterback at the school to start a season opener. Martinez finished with the best per-game, total-offense average in program history and the third-highest figure ever by a true freshman nationally.

He enters the second stanza of spring practice Monday in Lincoln with odds of 6 to 1 to win the Heisman Trophy in 2019, according to the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook. It trails only Tua Tagovailoa and Trevor Lawrence, who return from leading their unbeaten teams to the championship game of the College Football Playoff in January.

The journey for Martinez, whose Cornhuskers finished 4-8 in his debut season, is distinctive in that he overcame tragedy, then serious injury and dodged recruiting landmines. His resolve and positivity define him more than any setback, tying his past to a promising future.

“Character and leadership ability make him special,” said Texas State coach Jake Spavital, the first recruiter to earn Martinez’s trust in 2016 as offensive coordinator at Cal. “It’s pretty fascinating. I still follow his success. He’s just going to keep going.”

Martinez, in the fall of 2010, knew his mom was sick. He had seen her cry from the pain that October at home and in the hospital while she tried to keep up with her caseload as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Fresno office.

She likely never knew of her full diagnosis, a form of uterine cancer that spread to her lungs, Tony said. That’s how fast it all happened. As for Adrian, whose passion for sports was surpassed only by his love of Deanna, he could not comprehend the stakes.

Tony Martinez and Adrian’s former teacher cried together on the phone. He heard Kristi, but Tony said he couldn’t share Deanna’s grim prognosis and crush Adrian in that way.

“She had an understanding (about Adrian) that I had no comprehension of,” Tony said.

Kristi convinced him. So Tony took Adrian again to see his mother in the hospital. She was comatose. It was uncomfortable for Adrian, and it was the last time he saw her.

She died on Nov. 5, four days after her 43rd birthday. That same weekend, young Adrian played a football game. His coach late in the first half devised a trick play that called for Adrian, at running back, to take a pitch and throw deep.

“I swear I couldn’t throw it that far,” Martinez said. “I thought something was carrying that ball for me. Something had to have happened. We scored on the play, but I feel like my mom pushed it along. I believe to this day that she helped that ball go.”

In the months after her death, Adrian said he remembers eating “little vegetable packets” alone with his dad in a house meant for more people than the two of them.

“It was hard,” said Tony, who drives 45 miles each way to work as the operations manager at Helena Agri-Enterprises in Hanford, Calif. “But I wanted to make sure that he was going to be OK. That was my primary objective.”

He had lots of help. Their support network tightened in Clovis, a community of about 100,000 northeast of Fresno. Friends and family members encircled Tony and Adrian as they invested more time in his football, basketball and baseball teams.

Then in 2012, Adrian’s father married Kristi Vincent.

She’s now Kristi Martinez. Among many photos of family alongside articles that document Adrian’s football prowess, his stepmother displays in her fourth-grade classroom at Valley Oak Elementary a shot of the teacher smiling with two mothers from her class nine years ago.

One of the women is Deanna.

She still helps give Adrian the strength to complete his long throws, the QB said.

“I believe she’s always within me,” he said. “Really, the actions I take now are to make her proud and to make my dad proud. I think to myself often, ‘Is this something my mom would have wanted? Would she be proud of how I’m handling this?’ ”

Adrian Martinez is taking 15 credit hours this spring, his third semester of college after enrolling early in January 2018. He’s studying business and plans to finish the core requirements toward his major with courses in accounting and micro-economics this summer, then scale back with 12 hours during football season.

The Huskers, after consecutive losing seasons for the first time in 57 years, expect to make a large leap in Frost’s second year. Much of the hope relates directly to Martinez, whose 64.4-percent completion rate — while throwing for 2,617 yards as a freshman — ranked second in school history for a single season.

Frost said recently that he wants Martinez to leave Nebraska as the best quarterback ever to play at the school. And the coach, a former national-champion Nebraska QB, considers Martinez to rank among the emotional leaders for a team that returns seven starters on offense and six on defense.

“He’s going to be (a leader), whether he wants to or not,” Frost said, “just because of the position he plays and how well he played last year. He can’t back into that. He’s got to take it on, accept it and embrace it.”

OK, that’s pressure. But you wouldn’t know it from meeting Martinez. He’s laid back and careful with his words, but not so much that his conversations sound rehearsed. Martinez talks like someone 15 years his elder.

(Bruce Thorson / USA TODAY Sports)

“I’ve known thousands of kids,” said Marc Hammock, the Clovis West principal during Martinez’s first three years at the high school and now an assistant superintendent in the district. “You have about five percent of your student body who are just special kids. But Adrian had everything.”

Teachers wanted him in their classes.

“He raised the expectation,” Hammock said. “There were no class clowns with Adrian around.”

Asked about his favorite moment last fall, Martinez picked Nebraska’s 9-6 win against Michigan State, a game in which he struggled, throwing for 144 yards on 44 attempts.

“It was validation,” he told The Athletic this month between morning practice and an afternoon course in social justice. “There were games throughout the early part of the season that we should have won. We thought we were the better team, but we found a way to lose.

“The difference is, with winning teams, they find a way to win. We found a way (against Michigan State). It was the feeling that we reached something as a team. That meant a lot to me.”

Nebraska started 0-6 as Martinez battled a knee injury that caused him to miss one game and limited him in others. When the Huskers broke through to win four of their final six games with a healthy quarterback, observers saw the offensive system that earned Frost so much success in a 13-0 season two years ago at UCF.

Martinez threw 11 touchdowns with three interceptions in the second half of the year. He posted 338 yards of total offense in a 36-31 loss at Ohio State and 336 yards in a 31-28 defeat at Iowa — Nebraska’s only losses after Week 7.

People close to him describe Martinez as an “old soul.” He was a voracious reader and a sports junkie back in California. In Lincoln, he’s a celebrity who finds increasing difficulty in heading off campus to get a burger with roommates Brody Belt, Barret Pickering and Will Farniok.

Yes, that’s a walk-on running back, the starting kicker and a reserve offensive lineman, respectively.

“He’s very humble about it,” Belt said.

What else would you expect?

Martinez expected to finish with his recruiting in the fall of 2016, his junior year at Clovis West.

He won the starting job as a sophomore and received scholarship offers from Fresno State and Nevada before Spavital found him the next spring. The coach saw raw athleticism and remarkable maturity.

“I was like, immediately, ‘This kid’s got it,’ ” he said.

Spavital, who coached Johnny Manziel at Texas A&M in 2013, decided to watch two or three games of tape in the fall, then make a scholarship offer.

Martinez accepted in November 2016.

“Adrian’s a pleaser,” former Clovis West coach George Petrissans said. “He wants to do well for his coach. If he feels that connection, he’s going to run through a wall. He didn’t just want to go to a program; he wanted to go to a program where he could feel that bond.”

But almost right away came more adversity. Late in a spectacular junior season for Martinez, he hurt his right shoulder when hit on a running play along the sideline. He fought through discomfort to play in a pair of playoff games, but the soreness persisted into the winter.

And in January 2017, Cal fired coach Sonny Dykes. Spavital, elevated briefly to interim coach, left for West Virginia upon the arrival of Justin Wilcox.

Meanwhile, Martinez dove into basketball season.

“Hindsight is 20-20,” he said, “and I was a little caught up in the moment. But at the time, I felt good enough to play, and I wanted to win a section championship.”

The result? A torn labrum in his right shoulder, courtesy of a hard foul as Martinez drove to the bucket. He sat for a short time and came back to the court as Tony and Kristi Martinez, Petrissans, the football coach, and Hammock, the principal, watched warily.

It was too late. A few seconds into his return, Martinez gathered himself to collect a rebound and his arm collapsed. Renowned southern California orthopedist Neal Elattrache, who repaired Tom Brady’s knee in 2008, performed the surgery.

Suddenly, much of how he had identified himself since the death of Deanna, some seven years before, was gone. No more football. He didn’t know if his arm strength would return.

And even before the injury in basketball, Martinez grew unsure about his commitment to Cal. The dynamic had changed, Tony Martinez said.

Sitting next to Adrian in church in the spring 2017 — in the building where the family held Deanna’s funeral service — Tony looked at the brace on his son’s throwing arm and broke down.

“He loses his mom,” Tony said. “Now he’s in high school, going to basically live his dream and this happens.

“What’s going to happen to this kid?”

Enter Tennessee. Coach Butch Jones and quarterbacks coach Mike Canales connected with Martinez. He visited Knoxville and bit hard. The Volunteers expressed no concern over his impending shoulder rehab.

In April 2017, Martinez dumped Cal. Two weeks later, he committed to Tennessee. But as Martinez sat out his senior season, still on the mend, the bottom fell out on Jones. Tennessee fired the coach in early November, and the Vols’ 0-8 SEC finish looked like a delight compared to the coaching search that followed.

“You never wish that on anyone,” the QB said.

He had to look around. Adrian and Tony visited Ohio State, but it felt wrong.

Then in the last week of November, Mario Verduzco called Petrissans. The quarterbacks coach at UCF, Verduzco dropped a hint that Frost and his assistants might be headed to Nebraska after the upcoming American Athletic Conference title game against Memphis.

He wanted to know if Martinez would be interested. Verduzco had seen Martinez months before and both enjoyed the visit, but UCF didn’t appeal to the quarterback.

(Joe Maiorana / USA TODAY Sports)

This new option intrigued Martinez, essentially open to anything as Tennessee spiraled. Adrian and Tony watched UCF-Memphis and saw reports on television that Frost had accepted the Nebraska job.

Sure enough, Martinez got a message from Petrissans to call Verduzco minutes after the game.

Frost’s quarterbacks coach, now dressed in new Nebraska gear, flew to see Martinez two days later. It went well, so Martinez visited Nebraska. And Verduzco returned in a few days with Frost.

Tony and Kristi hit it off immediately with the Cornhuskers’ new head coach. Frost told them about his brother’s appearance on “Jeopardy!”. They hardly talked football.

“He was just a guy who you knew you’d be a better person for being around,” Tony said. “He was different. I don’t want to compare the two, but he was like Jake Spavital.”

They all felt great about Verduzco, unlit cigar hanging from his mouth and all.

“It was perfect,” Martinez said, “from the situation to the offense to the coaches. It couldn’t have been better.

“It was like God’s plan.”

The roller coaster of recruiting did not mark the first circumstance of seemingly divine intervention for the Martinez family.

Three years before Adrian arrived as an elite college prospect, Kash Martinez was born in September 2013.

“Kristi and I had no plans of having children,” Tony said. “But I think God has a way of coming and presenting things to you.”

Tony was 47 at the time of Kash’s birth. The marriage had brought together Tony and Adrian with Kristi and her daughter, Kennedy, now a freshman at Clovis West. But Kash served as the glue to bond the family.

He’s especially close to Adrian.

“He adores me, and I love him to death,” Adrian said. “You should see when I go home. He doesn’t leave my side.”

Since the QB headed to Nebraska nearly 15 months ago, Adrian has traveled home twice — after final exams last May and in December.

“That was the one thing that was tough for me in going away to college,” he said. “My parents understood, but I felt like I didn’t want my little brother to forget me. I wanted to be there for him.”

When Adrian flew back to Nebraska after Christmas, Kash wanted to send his 14-year-old sister instead.

“Brutal honesty,” Tony said, laughing.

Kash, 5, has already taken ownership of Adrian’s old baseball equipment bag, the last name and No. 16 stitched on its front.

“Adrian is the big brother that you would always want for your kid,” Hammock said. “And he’s like that with my son, too. I think Adrian felt — the way people wrapped their arms around him after his mother died — that he owed something back to the community.”

(Mitch Sherman / The Athletic)

From the family’s story of love and loss came a path to create this relationship between brothers. It is perhaps another testament to Deanna’s impact, both material and spiritual.

After her death, an award was created in her name to honor the person in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Fresno who exemplifies her positive attitude and her willingness to help and show concern for co-workers.

Tony attended high school with Deanna in Hanford. They were neighbors who reconnected after Tony’s oldest child, Alyssa, now 26, was born. Tony and Deanna moved to Fresno in part to provide athletic and academic opportunities for Adrian.

“Deanna’s a big part of where we’re at right now,” Tony said. “The biggest parts of our lives have to do with her and the decisions we made.”

Adrian long wore a wristband, distributed at his mother’s funeral, that was printed with her initials, DLM. In the years after, he made plans to tattoo the letters on his left wrist, a permanent wristband.

He had it done last year over spring break in Nebraska. It’s his only tattoo, and he has no plans to get another.

With it, he said, “I feel like I’m never alone.”

(Top photo: Matthew Holst / Getty Images)