Five and often six days a week, David Martinez awakes at 1 a.m. and heads to work for the U.S. Postal Service. He supervises the sifting and sorting of mail, plus handles customer-service complaints.
Home usually by 11:30, Martinez squeezes in a nap, then tackles a truly challenging job – coaching Southwest High's football team.
The Raiders are 0-7. The scores of the games: 45-0, 42-0, 48-6, 56-34, 60-0, 48-0 and 55-6.
This at a school that hasn't celebrated a winning season since 1992.
Asked why he wants to coach a downtrodden, underdog program when he's already working a full-time job, Martinez said, “If we can change the program around, it benefits the kids who need help. I'm not going to sit on the sidelines and just watch.”
Situated in Nestor, largely a low-income community with a lot of movement by families, Southwest began competing at the varsity level in 1976. The Raiders field talented soccer teams. Riley Washington won the 100 meters at the 1992 state track championships. The school's academic decathlon team is riding a six-year county championship winning streak.
Football is another story, and Martinez, 48, knows he has a steep hill to climb, historically and personally.
The Southwest football team's record its first four seasons: 1-35. From 1998 through 2001, the Raiders lost 37 straight games.
Said former Southwest football coach Gil Warren, who now coaches at Olympian High, “It's not a real strong football community.”
Martinez, who played soccer at nearby Montgomery High, did not play high school football. He joined the Air Force out of high school and played flag and tackle football during his four-year military career, his first tackle experience coming on dirt fields in Turkey.
His coaching background: a few seasons coaching his sons in Pop Warner, then four-plus seasons as a high school assistant.
Four games into the 2007 season, Southwest's varsity coach was fired and Martinez was elevated to head coach. The team went 1-4 the rest of the season.
First-year Southwest Principal Maria Armstrong said she doesn't know how many people applied for the head coaching job after last season. A head coach's stipend is usually several thousand dollars.
“I know it wasn't record numbers,” she said. “It wasn't something people were flocking to.”
Martinez said the biggest problem at Southwest is numbers.
The team started the season with 35 players and is down to 31. As many as eight athletes often play offense and defense.
“They start gassing out,” Martinez said.
Here are other numbers illustrating Martinez's plight:
At Bonita Vista High last spring, 75-80 players showed up for practice. At Southwest, 15-20.
At Bonita Vista, the booster club usually raises $15,000 to $25,000 a year. At Southwest, Martinez held three car washes and raised $2,000.
As if dealing with lopsided losses weren't enough, the players must put up with sarcasm on their own campus.
After Southwest's girls tennis team played well in a tournament, an English teacher told her students, according to a varsity football player in the class, “Maybe we should send the girls up to the football team. They might score some points and win a game or two.”
Martinez said one of his biggest challenges is instilling discipline and structure in a program that was sorely lacking in those areas. If a player misses a practice, he sits out one quarter the next game.
Eight days ago, only 17 players showed up for practice.
The excuses?
One said he was working. Another said he had to baby-sit. One said he was being tutored. One vaguely said his parents had him doing something else.
“We're talking about a lot of single-parent homes. Some of them probably do have to work or baby-sit,” Martinez said. “It's heart-wrenching. But the real sad part is you don't see the parents being as (accountable) with them as we are.”
After the Raiders' lone touchdown in a 55-6 loss to Sweetwater on Friday, the kicker promptly missed the extra point, wide right.
As the kicker stepped to the sideline, Martinez, his head cocked to the right, looked at him, smiling. Verbally, Martinez said nothing. But his body language spoke volumes. A mixture of what happened? and you'll make it next time.
Players praised Martinez for his positive attitude throughout the season.
Said two-way lineman Dutch Taylor, “He's calm, he's patient, and he cares about us.”
After the game, as the Raiders gathered at one far end of the field beneath the goal posts, the coaches emphasized the positives.
“If it weren't for that stupid kickoff return and that (100-yard) interception return, we'd have held them to one touchdown the second half,” said defensive coordinator James Santos.
“I think we found our quarterback,” Martinez said.
Tossing the ball in workouts, tight end/linebacker Gustavo “Goose” Gonzalez often showed off a rocket arm. In the second half the 6-foot-2, 215-pound Gonzalez asked Martinez if he could step behind center.”
“You serious?” Martinez asked.
So despite never taking a snap in practice all season, Gonzalez stood in the shotgun, played quarterback, shook off some potential sacks, threw some lasers and instilled life into the team.
Martinez, meanwhile, said there are lessons he's teaching the players that are more important than winning or losing.
“You can't go through life without discipline,” he said. “Once you turn 18, you're held accountable for all your actions. As football coaches, that's part of our job. We can't teach 'em just football.”
Asked how she thinks Martinez is doing in his first full season as head coach, Armstrong, the principal, praised the way the players have not given up.
“They have so much heart,” she said. “I think they're learning a lot more losing games than if they'd been winning. It really does develop a sense of character.”
Armstrong said she think it's “paramount” to eventually hire a coach who teaches on campus, increasing opportunities to better connect with the kids.
As for Martinez, the Raiders' fourth coach in four years, he said, “We're not going to leave them like other coaching staffs. Unless they fire us, we're going to be there. We're not quitting on them.”
Don Norcross: (619) 293-1803; don.norcross@uniontrib.com
