Greg Cote: R.I.P., Jim Martz. A fond tribute to the man who gifted me my Herald career & my future
My older brother chanced one day to see a small notice in the Broward edition of the Miami Herald mentioning they were looking for a part-time sports clerk, and thought I might be interested. It was the fall of 1972. I took a city bus east to the office in Fort Lauderdale because I didn’t have my driver’s license yet, and asked to see the man mentioned in the ad.
After a cordial 20-minute interview the Herald’s Broward Sports Editor stood up from behind his desk in the small corner office, smiled and offered his hand.
“You’re hired,” said Jim Martz.
That day changed my life. No, that man changed my life.
Fifty-plus years later my Herald career continues because somebody gave me a chance. Fate doesn’t just happen. One man steered mine.
Jim Martz passed away around dusk Saturday at age 80, one day after suffering a massive stroke while hospitalized for recent heart issues.
I saw him just a month or two earlier in the Hard Rock Stadium press box at a Miami Hurricanes football game.
Somehow, we had become two old men. We ran across each other regularly, so we chatted only briefly. Because you never think it might be the last time.
Jim was lean and lanky, fit for his age. He swam, exercised, ate well. A devout Presbyterian, he never drank or smoked.
His only sibling, Sue Schmidt, five years younger, flew in from Ohio when she got the news and was by his side when he died, holding his hand. Monday she was at his lakeside house in Pembroke Pines, going through his things, through the memories.
“I keep thinking Jim is going to come in,” she said, the shock still raw. “I’m sitting here waiting for him to get back. Jim was going to live to be 100.”
Martz was a Herald sports writer from 1970 to 1991, mostly covering Miami Hurricanes football and other UM teams, along with tennis. He was no less than a Canes historian who literally wrote the book on UM sports. Five books, actually. He also founded Florida Tennis magazine.
Two days after Jim had hired me as a clerk the phone rang in the corner office on Sunrise Boulevard. A young female voice said she was returning his call. I asked who I should say was calling.
“Chrissie Evert,” she said.
It dawned on me I had lucked into a pretty interesting job. And that my young boss might be a big shot.
After leaving the Herald Jim became the editor of CaneSport magazine and later the CaneSport website, and continued involved with those until the end. He sold Florida Tennis magazine just last summer and the magazine’s website has a lengthy tribute to him.
Reaction online included one from @BillieJeanKing on X.com (formerly Twitter), who wrote that Jim “dedicated his life to telling our stories.”
Martz was a past vice president of the U.S. Tennis Writers Association, and was a member of the Miami-Dade County Tennis Hall of Fame who also wrote several books about that sport, too.
Jim and I played tennis constantly, at C.B. Smith Park and elsewhere, before youth ran away from us, back when three long sets in the beating sun was no problem. We had great matches. He was great company. Kind, soft spoken. Never, not once, did I hear a swear word leave his lips.
Jim grew up near the Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Indiana, went to Alma College and the University of Iowa and began in journalism at the Des Moines Register before accepting a job at the Herald. I had just begun high school then, never imagining the Herald hiring Martz would shape my future.
Jim was a lifelong bachelor who treated Sue’s two kids and five grandchildren like his own. He was a decades-long mentor in the Big Brothers program, always staying in touch. Those were like his kids, too. One of his now-grown “little brothers” was with Sue at Jim’s bedside near the end.
He earned the respect of South Florida sports fans, especially Miami Hurricanes fans and those in the tennis community.
“I don’t know anybody who knew him who didn’t like him,” Sue said. “He was a gentle man of great integrity, with a very strong Christian faith he was very quiet about. He became an elder in the church.”
Arrangements for a funeral or public memorial were still pending as of Monday but we will share them when they are finalized.
My voice was fighting emotion and losing as I tried to tell Jim’s little sister what he meant to me, and how his hiring me as a clerk back in ‘72 would change my life. I had Jim as a guest on my podcast in the episode out August 29, 2022. The headline on the accompanying story was, ‘Meet the man who invented Greg.’ And he did. The me who became known publicly, at least.
I made sure that lifelong gratitude was never a secret and always known to the man who gifted me my career and future.
My thanks forever, Jim.
This story was originally published January 1, 2024 at 1:17 PM.
