nightmare. holy crap. i read that story in the bee's sport's section and thought, "wait, a high school football coach is calling press conferences through his lawyer? and it's not about some scandal? and he had multiple offensive coordinators? what d-1 are we talking about? college?"

i hope he doesn't sue the district because that would be petty and lame. check yourself and realize that you're a high school football coach and unless you're getting serious kickbacks under the table you're not getting paid millions. or even hundreds of thousands. you're allegedly an educator in a public high school. either move on or keep your job as a p.e. coach.

maybe he can give pat hill's mustache a call and see if he needs an assistant coach.

Maybe Martin should make that call. From what I hear, Pat Hill was more impressed with Marty Martin than the CW Administration, or the interests they represent.

You are right about this being high school football and not a high powered D1 program. But Martin is not the guy you need to give that speech to. It is the CW and CUSD Administrations who apparently have lost sight of reality.

I hope he doesn't sue as well. But if he does, there will be plenty of lameness to go around. Besides, CW and CUSD has been working with its attorneys on this matter for weeks. Why should Martin be deprived from legal representation, or vilified for fighting fire with fire?

I'm not close enough to take sides, but taking a default position against Martin is very short sighted, and is probably the knee jerk reaction that CUSD is banking on.

Let's wait and see where we are in a week or two. We all might be very surprised.

What a strange school district. I guess it allows the schools a lot of leeway in the decisions they make. On the one hand you have a school who's football program goes 0 and 10, the worst season in their history, and the administration welcomes him back with open arms for more seasons. Their long time rival on the other hand have a very successful season through adversity, injuries and a new coach and he is fired as coach. Jim Hartigan got out when he did because he knew with the expectations this year of him, he had no room for any other result but a state title. One loss would be unacceptable. He left before Clovis West administrators would do to him what they did to Marty Martin. There might be a problem with good talented coaches taking the Clovis West job seriously knowing it may be a short career. The Clovis High School job however will forever be known as a dream job. You don't even have to be able to win any games to have a secure future.

hs football fan

He is a high school coach is exactly the point. For a meger stipend of what $1,800, you can have your life ruined by a few parents.

It is happening too frequently. Are Marinovich and Tim Belcher running CUSD now?

As a former Golden Eagle, I must say I'm pretty confused about why they would fire Coach Martin. But I guess that's the nature of the beast that is C-Dub (do the students even call it that anymore?). Anyway, good luck to the next coach, and is there any way to get Coach Blankeship back?

I find the entire situation unfortunate for the coach and school. If I remember correctly, the CWHS AD thought Coach Martin was a change for the better because he was more "human". Now there is the question from the Principal and AD that the team lacked the toughness that Coach Hartigan imparted on his student athletes. Why did they "force out" Jim Hartigan for Marty Martin? Why is Coach Martin only given one year? I know the expectations were high but give the guy a chance.

This development raises more questions than it answers, not the least of which is, Who did Marty Martin hack off?

Clearly, there's more to this than losing to Bakersfield in the section final. While we watch that unravel, this story has some gaping holes:

The Bee's story mentions injuries. Which players? What injuries? What was the extent? Did they miss the playoffs? What's the background here? Was there a controversy?

The story mentions player suspensions. Again, names? Reasons? How long? At what point in the season? What do those players have to say about Martin?

Finally, an assistant coach "defection." His name? Where did he go? Why? What's he doing now? Was he replaced? By whom? Does he have a reaction to the Martin firing? Does his replacement have anything to say?

As to the players meeting, what was said? Were reasons for the firing offered to the kids? Or did they just pay the kids lip service (as is the implication, but not stated)?

Boogaard, you're better than that.

Coach Hartigan was never "forced out" at Clovis West. He took a higher paying job down south where his family and his wife is from. Get your facts straight before you start throwing false accusations at CW. But I do agree that the parental involvement at CW is beyond ridiculous. That needs to be the first thing that gets changed before they hire a new football coach.

so far this story is so one-sided it just doesn't make sense. I gotta believe their is way more to this story than what has been reported so far. I'm gonna wait and see what else comes up before I anoint the CUSD administration "CSUFresno Jr."

Sad day for CW.

The firing sends the wrong message to the students. When a football program is only about wins and losses it will fail. Just ask Notre Dame and Nebraska.

Marty filing a lawsuit is not a money issue. It's a prestige issue. Martin has to live with the humiliation of being fired when he did nothing wrong.

I hope he sues.

That's right, Coach Hartigan was never "forced out" at Clovis West. He saw the light. Hartigan got out when he did because he knew the expectations of this year. His team had been slowly deteriorating during his tenure. Players were quiting and previous players refuse to play for him. He demeanored them, he "racial" teased them and took the fun out of playing football. Some don't know, but this 2007 CW team had been playing football together since 7th grade (ask coach Francis. Those who quit or refuse to play for Hartigan during his tenure, re-assembled themselves for this 2007 season. Coach Marin was a breath of fresh air. He preached, "Winners for life'. The kids loved it. And it gave them purpose and hope. He allowed them to all become star players. Allowed them to show thier potential. To shine and show pride being a CW eagle. And yes some parents, well connected have a heavy influence at District level. Sadly the CW District Admin. make decisions based on a few people. Best wishes to Coach Martin. Thank Coach Matin for allowing these CW eagle players to shine and making winners out of each one of them, even through this tough and controversial seaso.

I've know this program for much of my adult life, and yes the parents have always wanted to interfere and call the shots more or less, but no more then parents do at other schools. To say that the parents are running the show at Clovis West is a bit over the top. Ask Coach Blankenship if the parents were running the shots while he was there, he never seemed to have any problems with them.

It isn't the parents who are trying to run the shots, it's the administration and district officials. Coach Blankenship left because he was tired of the way certain people in the administration were treating him, the lack of respect given and the micro-managing that takes place at Clovis West.

At this point Clovis West has to try to bring Coach Blankenship back as it is about the only way they can save face with the way they've been illuminated in the press.

A story like this just makes me sick to my stomach. This is high school football, people. It's very sad what has become of our society.

On this and the other blogs people keep mentioning about coach Blankenship coming to the rescue. Ahh the glory years. He's a great coach. In the past at CW and now at Madera. I don't know, maybe he's sitting by his phone waiting for it to ring so he can come running back to save the day for the CW faithful. I wouldn't bet on it though unless the pay is a lot better then what he is getting or if he want's to add a few more years to his retirement. He now has a team in a district with a lot of support from the community. Good talented kids are excited and are now going out for the team. I know he has a lot less pressure on him and the community is willing to wait awhile for the results. Watch out Clovis Unified. Here comes Coach Blankenship and the Coyotes. And he can play loose knowing if he looses a couple games, he won't be looking for a new job. Besides that, who's to say CW want's him back. He only won on average 8 out of 10 games.

hs football fan