Play From Your Heart: Scott Martin's Story of Strength

Scott Martin is a former collegiate soccer coach whose life was permanently changed after a rare illness led to the amputation of both hands and parts of his feet.

In this episode, we talk about trauma, depression, discrimination, and how Scott rebuilt his identity through coaching, mentorship, and belief in others. We also discuss his upcoming book, Play From Your Heart, and the philosophy that carried him forward when everything he knew was taken away.

This is a powerful story about resilience and choosing to keep going.

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Transcript

Intro Song

Rob Valincius: Boom. We are live on Thirsty Thursday, my favorite day of the week outside of Friday. I am your host Rob Valincius based on a transcript from the drink o'clock podcast with Scott Martin, can you create me a Youtube Thumbnail? I included a snapshot of what he looks like, and I have the pleasure of having with me Scott Martin. Now, Scott, I didn't have to ask you this time around. Most of the time I have some crazy last names and I'm like, all right, I wing it.

You are a little bit more easier. So, uh, I'm thankful for that. Uh,

Scott Martin: for being easy. Rob.

Rob Valincius: now, Scott, you're, uh, you're an author. Well, your, your book is coming out in, in June of this year, right? Uh, play from Your Heart or Journey Through Loss, resilience, and the Beautiful Game. So welcome to the show.

Scott Martin: exactly. Thank you very much. I've been looking forward to this. Um, my wife poured me a, a, a nice tall glass of brown sugar bourbon. So

Rob Valincius: Okay. There you go.

Scott Martin: I'm good with this.

Rob Valincius: Cheers up. Cheers up.

Scott Martin: Here we go.

Rob Valincius: So, yeah, I, I, I, uh, I didn't go old fashioned today. That's my, my go-to on the show. I, there's just, I, you know what it is as you age, you know, uh, in 2026 this year I'll be 40. I'm hitting that, that,

Scott Martin: poor boy.

Rob Valincius: monumental, uh, moment and, uh, surprising. I made it this long, to be honest. But, um, I, I, I look at it this way.

Your tastes start to become sophisticated, right? And, uh, for the longest time, I got my friends make fun of me. 'cause I was always the light beer drinker. I never drink any whiskey, and I still, I still drink light beer. I, I enjoy light beer. Um, you know, I'm not a fan of IPAs and all the other crazy shit.

I'm a very simple guy. Uh, but when it comes to whiskey, I have grown, um, you know, we'll say over the past four or five years into sophisticated whiskeys. I'm, I'm not the biggest fan of like, scotches and things like that. But, but there's just something about. A really well made good aged whiskey.

Scott Martin: Yeah. Just the sipping

Rob Valincius: You appreciate the art.

There's an art form to

Scott Martin: Yeah, well, you know, I have a problem. I was, I was known, I've always been known as the beer pansy because being in soccer and going over to Europe and things, and I can't drink dark beer, anything with a certain color, I can't because I have a special taste.

Anything that is, uh, burnt taste or, uh, just certain tastes like that dark beer have the bitterness. It just revolting to me, and I can't say it. So, being in soccer and growing up and having my first, first beer at 16 when I'm playing with men in their twenties and thirties, I was known as a beer pansy because I could only drink, uh, the laggers and things like that.

So, here we go.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that. I, I honestly. I, I, I embrace it now. Uh, you know, it's something you learn, uh, as you age as well, is you just embrace the shit you, you like and the shit you don't like, you know? And that's what makes us unique, you know,

Scott Martin: Exactly.

Rob Valincius: you know, you, um, you have a very unique backstory, right?

So, uh, my podcast, I always like to start with the before. So walk me through up to kind of the, the tragic turn, or, or the, I don't wanna say tragic, you're still here, right? But, you know, uh, the, the major turn in your life. Walk me through there. What was your life like? Where did you grow up? I mean, you don't have to get into super specifics, but, um, would love to hear about that.

Scott Martin: I'm a Wisconsin boy through and through. Except for the dark. Except for the dark beer, I guess.

Rob Valincius: Packer fan.

Scott Martin: hell yeah. Packers. Brewers, you bet. But I lived out

Rob Valincius: Hey man, Packers got a tough game. Packer's got a tough game this weekend, so

Scott Martin: They're

Rob Valincius: the Packers,

Scott Martin: Last I heard, they're favored to win and soldier field get, I don't know where the heck they're gonna pull that rabbit from.

Outta the

Rob Valincius: it's supposed to snow really bad. Apparently. I saw they're gonna have like, uh, they said it's, they, they just said that it's uh, looking like they're gonna have uh, not substantial but cumulative snow. So we'll see. Gotta love a Green Bay, you know, Chicago Bear Snow game. You gotta appreciate that.

Scott Martin: I put it in Soldier Field. All right, here's my background, man. Um, so I went to college in Wisconsin, uh, again, staying here. Uh, came out, uh, eventually with a degree in social studies in history, and I ended up teaching at the high school level. That's where I started out.

Um, and, and coaching both boys and girls soccer and working my way up ahead, an eye on getting to the college ranks instead of going as someone's assistant right outta college at a division one. I went to the classroom doing my teaching and building programs and learning that way and, and going over to Europe most every summer when we weren't playing and things.

Boy, what a busy guy I was during those times. Um, and an opportunity came to be the head coach at a division three. So, boom. Uh, I took the position as the head women's soccer coach at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire first year program. Uh, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll say something right up front, Rob.

I have never, even now, I have never taken over a winning program. It's either been losing before or it was a brand new program. This one at Eau Claire was brand new, but had a decent group of, we have 14 players, man, that's it. But we, we were able to just learn how to work with each other within the, uh, the philosophy they had.

So we ended up going naturally ranked that first season and things were looking real. Yeah. Uh, a buddy of mine that I had been to Europe with before, he and I hand selected college players from across the country, had 'em targeted to go play in the top three tournaments over in Europe and just finished up two, two weeks of, um, youth camps at the university.

Had a good recruiting class coming in. Nike called me I think in June and said, Hey, we heard some good things about you. We want you to come on down outside of Chicago to a regional camp. We had a 100 of the top players in the Midwest. You don't have to say anything more when and where you, you know, but I showed up in Adidas 'cause that's we're under contract for.

So that was kind of a, that was a interesting way to start things off. The guys were cool. It just shoved me over into a closet and say, put on whatever you want. You know, whatever fits for Nike gear and it's yours. So, um, at the camp, because it was Nike and they, they have a bunch of, they always have had a bunch of national team players under contract with them.

So they were national team players there, uh, top coaches from across the country. This was just right up my alley, you know, to keep moving up that ladder. We had a, a coach's exhibition to play and. I'd never done this before, Rob. I pulled myself out, you know, playing with and against national team players.

My god, what a great opportunity. But I had to pull myself out 'cause I just, something was wrong. I spent that night either throwing up profusely or sweating like crazy or shivering like crazy in my dorm room. I got up the next morning still feeling bad outside of Chicago, but where the heck are the hospitals, right?

So if you don't know where a hospital is or a doctor is, you go to mom. My mom was an hour and a half away in southern Wisconsin before cell phones are up. I was supposed to show up the next day to see her, give her a hug and a kiss, grab lunch, and then head up to Minneapolis for a recruiting trip. But I showed up a day early and as soon as she looked at me, she said, something's wrong.

You get your butt over the emergency room. I'll see you later. Presented myself, uh, cut to the chase a little bit. They said, Hey, go grab some Gatorade. You're gonna be fine. No, no. Next morning felt worse, cancel the recruiting calls in Minneapolis. Uh, last thing I remember was being in the passenger seat in my stepfather's car, him backing out as my mom's just looking freaked outside of the, uh, her kitchen door.

I woke up a month later, man, uh, from a coma,

Rob Valincius: Wow.

Scott Martin: I was told the news that I had, uh, contracted group a strep with necrotizing fasciitis, which is the death of body parts, death of skin. And that in order to save my life, what in order to save my life, they had to amputate both hands and parts above feet. So yeah, we're talking fork in the road.

That's one big ass fork right there. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I was unable to move. I had learned that I, I couldn't move because I had lost 40 pounds of muscle, um, from atrophy. Over a month's time. Um, machines around me that had no idea, but I did notice one machine, you know, looking out my corner of my right eye.

I could see a machine going up and down the same as what I recognized my lungs were doing. So I put two and two of the other. Holy shit, this thing is, you know, it's helping me breathe. And I was

Rob Valincius: you alive.

Scott Martin: exactly. Well that's what I was told. There was all these machines were keeping me alive. Dialysis, I mean, just everything, you know.

So, uh, wake

Rob Valincius: That's crazy. So, so, so did they tell, like is there a specific, like how do you contract that?

Scott Martin: We don't know.

Rob Valincius: it like super rare?

Scott Martin: Yes. At the time it was showing its ugly head, this illness. The media glommed onto it and, and called it the fleshing disease and that. It doesn't eat flesh, it's just what the body does with white blood cells to protect itself. You know, it, it choked off the, uh, the veins in the extremities, you know, first with white blood cells.

And then it just, my family told me that they could see almost hour by hour the blackness of my skin creeping from the fingers up towards the wrist and above the wrist. And, and

Rob Valincius: Wow.

Scott Martin: it did reach a point where a doctor grabbed my mom and a, my brother, one of my brothers, and said, Hey, you've got two choices from here.

We can unplug him and he can pass in a couple of days. Or, here are the amputations. We do these amputations and we see how he handles life. And what I was told was, you know, that was just, we told him to do what we knew that you would say would be to do the amputations. So I mean, it's, um. A lot, you know, from writing the book.

I was able to dig back into some of this stuff, Robin, and find out what the family went through. And I also noticed that I was going through some things at the same time. It was called guilt. Guilt was just grabbing me by the throat basically. 'cause here I am. Yeah. I didn't have anything to do with what happened, but my family had to, they were there 24 hours a day while I was in the como basically.

So I felt bad. So, but also what I was doing, Rob, was I was reflecting or deflecting my emotions, or lack of showing emotions into, oh, you know, I, I, I feel bad for my family and what I've made them go through. So I was, I, I did a stupid thing right from the start, right from the start. And I ended up paying for it like five years later.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, I mean, look, I, I, uh, obviously, you know, a lot of people, you went through a traumatic event, but a lot of people also don't realize just how much that affects your family and the people around you as well, and especially for your parents that had to kind of make that call. Right? I mean, that's gotta still to this day, you know, or, or, you know, throughout their life.

It had to affect them, whether they tell you or not, you know how it is with parents, they're not gonna, they're not gonna actively tell you that. But, you know, I, I couldn't imagine making that. Now I don't have kids. I have dogs and I know I'm gonna have to make a call at some point, you know? 'cause that's, we all sign up for that when you, when you get dogs.

And I, I don't, I don't want to, I don't even wanna look forward to it. Uh, you know, it's, it's something that you just put in the back of your mind. So I can only imagine, um, you know, what happened, uh, from a psychological standpoint for your, your family.

Scott Martin: Exactly. I, there's still some faking that goes on now. You know, we're 32 going on 33 years later and we all still fake things a bit on, you know, how I am emotionally or how they might be or how they treat me or whatever. You know, it still hurts. Uh, it's, uh, guilt is there. I feel guilty when my wife does stuff for me, you know?

But basically, yeah, I, I was able to make do with what I had, and that's what the book is all about, looking backwards onto, you know, all of these things, all of these forks in the road that, uh, that cropped up along the way.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. So, you know, walk me through, you know, your thoughts, you know, 'cause you know, I, I try to think, you know, I, up until recently, I was up until probably the past, maybe, let's see, I was very active throughout my life. I was, I played a lot of basketball. That was, that was my thing. I, I still love basketball, but I tore my ACL in like 2016 and kind of was never the same.

I mean, it kind of repaired, but once you get that injury, it's, it's hard to ever really come back, at least right now. Um, and I think I tore both of my hip rotators at some point. And there, it's just now kind of starting to bother me officially. 'cause, you know. After a while you're fine. But, um, yeah, I told this story on the podcast before, but I just remember I was, I was playing, this was probably, uh, a year after I, I think I messed my left hip up and I went to go through a no look pass and I felt my entire hip at, on the left side, just pop completely outta the socket and then just come right back in because it's still connected to everything, you know.

Um, and I had a bruise that went from the inner part of my groin all the way down to my, it looked like someone beat me with a baseball bat. It was, it was pretty bad. Um, and that was the last time I really truly played. Like I've, I've played, you know, pick up basketball, you know, 2 1 2 3 B three here and there.

But I have not played like full court hustle, like, like I was a maniac 'cause I was shorter. So I always had to play with speed and I was always had to play with my brain and not necessarily my size. Um, so walk me through, like, you know, obviously you're. You know, even though you're a coach, I mean, coaches still have to run around.

I mean, you know, still, you know, soccer's very, I played soccer growing up too. It's a very physical sport in terms of sprinting and running and the, you know, mental acuity. Like, there's a lot of stuff going on with soccer, you know, when you woke up, what, what was that process like for you? You know, like finding out that you're, you're, you know, you don't have hands, you know, I mean, that's just crazy.

Scott Martin: After I digested missing Europe, you know, that that team of, uh, college players from across country went over, they ended up winning all three major tournaments. I mean, I was so proud of them. They won. And here's another trick I did on myself, Rob. I woke up and I realized, you know, what time of year it was, and it was, Hey, my, my, my players are supposed to be arriving to training in a couple of weeks.

You know, let, let's get me there. That was bullshit. I mean, uh, I was just stupid to think that sort of, I ended up, you know, one month in a coma, four more months in, in rehab. That was a long time. I did end up going to some matches in a wheelchair and do some training with our goalkeeper, which is crazy.

But, you know, again, everybody was faking it and trying to help me out mentally. So,

Rob Valincius: Um, can you, can you do me a favor? Are you able to turn up your volume a little bit on your mic?

Scott Martin: Uh, ba ba, ba, ba. How about I just bring it, I wonder if it's attached to. I ended up turning my, let's see if this works. Does that, does that help? Did that help?

Rob Valincius: a little bit. It sounds, it sounds a little bit better when you're closer.

Scott Martin: yeah, let's do that.

Rob Valincius: Much better. Much

Scott Martin: Okay, cool. I apologize.

Rob Valincius: no, you're good. I, you know what, it's, it's, uh, I, it's something I can always edit in post, but,

Scott Martin: Oh, good.

Rob Valincius: the more, the less I have to do and the more the AI can do it for me.

Scott Martin: I hear you.

Rob Valincius: I'm, I'm, I'm good

Scott Martin: Okay. All right. Cool.

Rob Valincius: Um, but yeah, I mean, like, I'm just thinking in, you know, in my head, you know, there's gotta be, you have the, the almost like the five stages of grief Right.

For yourself.

Scott Martin: Mm-hmm.

Rob Valincius: And I'm just thinking in my head if, if that happened to me. Um, now I actually almost died. So when I was, when I was five, I don't know if I ever told the story on the podcast, but when I was five, I got spinal meningitis.

Scott Martin: Oh, that's a bad thing.

Rob Valincius: And this was when, you know this, I was, it was 90, I think it was 91, just 'cause I, I was born in 86 and, you know, so my brother was a baby or he might not even been born yet.

It was like right, right around then. And um, I just remember, you know, I, so I had this toy. Uh, it was almost like it was a trashcan, but it was a toy trashcan. I think that's where they put all my toys and I was, I remember physically I'm vomiting in it. They had taken all the, my parents took at all the toys and I just kept vomiting and vomiting and vomiting.

And, uh, got to the point where they're like, all right, we need to go to the hospital. We don't know what to do. Like this isn't just a standard like stomach illness. And, um, so they took me into the hospital, um, and I had a, I had to get a spinal tap as a kid, um, which, you know, is a,

Scott Martin: That's not

Rob Valincius: screaming kid.

Uh, you know, I had to have like five grown men hold me down. My dad was one of them. My mom couldn't, my mom couldn't do it, you know, and, and you couldn't have, um, more than one parent in, I think at the time. So my dad's like, don't worry, I'll, I'll, I'll do it. And uh, you know, uh, they had to do the spinal tap found out.

So there's two different kinds. So there's viral and bacterial. Um, I think I had. I wanna say I had the bacterial 'cause the virals more deadly. I, I had the less deadly one. I forget which one it was. Um, and I wa I, I recovered. Uh, but that was, you know, I, I'm just thinking to myself like, what, what would happen if, you know, they did the spinal tap and then I was paralyzed or, you know, like what would, now as a kid, it's, it's a lot different because you're not set right.

You, you would grow up. I would've grown up that way and it would've sucked, but I would've grew up that way. And, uh, but as you, you're older and in your prime, you know, when, how old were you when this happened?

Scott Martin: 35. Just turned 35.

Rob Valincius: Well, there you go. So I mean, your mid thirties, half the time you're still figuring yourself out in your mid thirties, you know, like, um, so I couldn't imagine the, the stressor that, that would cause. So, um, you know, this happens, you know, you go through therapy, um, you know. Doctors, you know, they're telling you surviving was the victory.

Um, you know, why didn't you feel like that was enough?

Scott Martin: Part of it was what I said earlier about screwing up focus on work.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Scott Martin: focused, I ended up paying for it by running into the brick wall of, uh, depression, you know. A few years later. 'cause I didn't deal with, I didn't cope with my head and I didn't cope with my heart. I just work, work, work. But I, you know, that might've, that was my strength and also my weakness.

Okay. And I accepted that. Well, I didn't accept it. I didn't even know it at the time, Rob. Um, we still had nationally ranked programs. But as I look back and I could look at the quality of play started to dwindle, uh, you know, a couple years later because I wasn't, I wasn't my salesman type self, uh, doing a dry call at a tournament on, on a player.

'cause you know, who am I to go shake someone's hand? What are they gonna think? So I started recruiting differently and it, it was not a good thing because soccer's a personable artistic game. And you need that sort of person as, as a coach to be able to speak with and to sell the program. You know, my job as a head coach at a university, uh, was put butts in seats.

I don't care if it's division one and they're getting scholarships or division three, and it's just part of the program. It's the job is to put butts in seats to promote the university. So I wasn't no longer doing that. After a while, I, I didn't think so. That's why I ended up, you know, making a change.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, and I mean, you know, what was that? What was harder to process The physical loss, you know, the loss of, you know, the hands and feet or the fear of losing the purpose, like losing your job that, that you love so much and you poured yourself into,

Scott Martin: Uh, Marilyn Scripps, my athletic director, was point blank with, don't you dare worry about losing your position, so that I had that safety net beneath me. Okay. So it was just go forward. So I didn't have to worry about that. Uh, and I knew that work, my work ethic would carry me through to learn how to cope with things even though I was faking it.

So those two things I, I felt comfortable with being able to deal with. Okay. So I I, I knew I'd come out at the end. Yeah.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, sports, sports is all about resiliency.

Scott Martin: Yeah.

Rob Valincius: you know, I, I think that, um, you being a coach, I mean, you, you, every day you teach resiliency, right? Um, and you're teaching, you know, college kids that you know that maybe they aren't used to hard stuff and, you know, they're not used to getting knocked down and, and having to get back up and, um, you know, also helping your teammates and, and do those things.

So, um, I can see how the sports world could kind of wrap its arms around you, um, you know, in your kind of moment of despair. But at the same time, it's also very easy to, to hide it like you did and just say, I'm just gonna keep doing me, and even though I'm not, okay.

Scott Martin: It. I, I ran into a lot of discrimination, Rob, after I, before the illness, I was a white guy in athletics and all you had to do was win. I like winning. I knew how to win, so boom, you know, sky's the limit. Afterwards, all of a sudden I'm disabled. I mean, I ran into open discrimination that no one would admit to all the time, you know, later on when I ended up resigning my position because I needed, I just needed a change.

I went out east, had a couple of interviews, and at one time there was not luck director and I met in his office. His secretary was across the hall after the meeting. I went down the hall to, to grab a, a drink of water and I heard him say to his secretary, why did I just interview a, a, a guy with no hands for this position?

Boom. You know, that starts piling on. Rob, you know, that starts piling on along with my own self negative. It, it,

Rob Valincius: So, so what, what year, what, what like year range was this in? Were we talking like nineties?

Scott Martin: 93 was the illness and the brick wall and making the change was, uh, 97. So

Rob Valincius: and, you know, eighties, nineties, man, there really wasn't, you know, there was rules for discrimination, right? For disabilities, but

Scott Martin: it still happens.

Rob Valincius: one was. Oh, yeah. I, I can only

Scott Martin: I, I, I am still discriminated against. Yeah.

Rob Valincius: I interviewed a guy, uh, who, who also went through a, a tragic thing, but it was from sports. Um, he actually, uh, his first. I think it was his first play of, um, playing, uh, college football at the, the college that he dreamed of going to on special teams.

He hit somebody and it broke his back and he, he became paraplegic. And, uh, this was in the seventies and eighties and, you know, he kind of described, and I thought it was kind of wild 'cause you, you know, I'm not disabled in any way, right? So my mindset is set for someone that's got two hands, two arms, two legs.

But when that's not there, that's when you have to start thinking about it. And, um, it's one of the great things I love about podcasting, being able to meet people of all different avenues. I didn't think, well, okay, if this is the seventies and eighties where there's no, there's no fucking ramps anywhere, how the hell this, this guy not only finished college still, like he made it his goal to finish college.

He became a lawyer. And he was a litigator in Florida. And I just said to him, I'm like, how did you have the resilience to like, to, to go through all that? And, and uh,

Scott Martin: he gonna

Rob Valincius: of it was his.

Scott Martin: What

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Scott Martin: no alternative man,

Rob Valincius: He poured it all into his brain. Is is kind of what his thought. Like, look, if I'm, if I can't be physically able, I'm just going to learn,

Scott Martin: what he did with

Rob Valincius: I'm going to, yeah. And I'm gonna make sure people know who I am. And, uh, he did that I think for like 20 or 25 years, wrote a book about his experience and, but he was explaining a lot about, you know, his college had no, there was no ramps. Like he had to have people carrying him up the stairs. And, uh, he said, not only was it demeaning, 'cause people would, everyone would look at him, you know, like, who's this guy?

That's weird. Right. And, uh, obviously a different time, um, because. You know, uh, there was absolutely nothing to help people. I think now we pretend like there's a lot of stuff and we don't look at it weird, but people absolutely do a hundred

Scott Martin: oh, yeah. Oh yeah. You know, as I've been getting more into the marketing aspect of this, the, the book is basically done, the editing process. We just have the damn thing with the proofreader, like, fricking a, let's get this thing rolling. Will you? Um, I'm to the point I'm, I'm learning that how this is being picked up.

I, I just spoke of a freelance journalist out of London a couple days ago. I mean, this, it's getting picked up and it's not just the disabled community, it's the, uh, it's the aspect of this is a damn positive story in negative times. You know, people are picking up on that, but I'm learning that and I'm accepting it.

I'll welcome it on. If I need to be some sort of ambassador or, or just a person that doesn't mind speaking up about the disabled community and, you know, give that person a job. The disabled people that are non-disabled, I'm, I'm trying, sorry if I'm labeling, but it basically is don't

Rob Valincius: Look, man, this is a, this is a, um, a TalkFree zone here. Um, we're not, we're not gonna hit you with anything because I feel like this, you know, the PC world drives me a little crazy. You can speak how you feel on this podcast. Okay.

Scott Martin: I don't feel that, uh, people are giving. Uh, enough credit to the disabled community and they're not understanding that dis visibly disabled have to deal with so much shit. Those are the people that will be dedicated. Those are the people who are gonna show up when they're supposed to show up, and they're gonna be the ones that also put in the extra work because they feel it, that society is looking over their shoulder at them.

Those are the people that should be hired for God's sakes. And that's one of the things that I'm starting to pick up on from my side as this thing starts to take off a bit, and I'm not afraid to say it, that dunk on it, hire the disabled. They, they're dedicated, you know, they, they deal with this crap.

Rob Valincius: Yeah, I mean, I, I, I'll say this, my dad listens to this podcast, um, hi pop. Um, he recently, he got a, into a, a bad car accident and, uh, but he had, um, arthritis, like very, very bad arthritis in his lower back, um, and in his hips. And, uh, he is now currently at the point where he can barely walk. Like he's got a walker.

Um, they're going to, uh, he's in the process of getting his hips replaced. He's gonna have to have a back surgery as well. 'cause he is got bulging discs from the accident. Um, but he's gonna have to have, he's gonna get it. He's gonna start with one and then he is gonna get the other hip. Both of them apparently need to be replaced.

Um, but they're basically bone on bone and, you know, he's, he kind of has been talking to me about dealing with, you know, people looking at him differently

Scott Martin: Hmm.

Rob Valincius: you know, he's trying to put his walker in his car and someone comes over and, and he's like, Hey, let me get

Scott Martin: Let me get there.

Rob Valincius: I got it, man.

Yeah. He's like, I can do it. Like, I, I don't need your help. And I think there's, there's a, a catch 22, right? Because we as a society, we do wanna feel like we are helping disabled people and we, it makes us look better, right? 'cause people say, oh, that guy's helping that guy. But at the same time, it's like, as I'd imagine, right?

Maybe you can back me up as a disabled person, you wanna still be able to live a normal life and do what you

Scott Martin: Yeah. Leave me alone. You know, I, I, I remember someone feeling or responding to my lack of requests or to say I got it. It was, I remember being in a grocery store one time and about banking, groceries or things, and they almost felt as if they were, it seemed like they were mad at me for de declining.

No. That's where the educating of the non visually disabled comes in, and I think that's the perspective I've taken. I'm not pissed at people because that's, we don't know. It's kind of what you were describing as I would call the the Boy Scout complex. You know, help help the little old lady across the street and get your, get your badge, you know, disabled will ask.

I do not have a, anything in my car to show that I can park in a disabled spot, because I feel that that's for people that have walking issues. Okay. And I do not, um, you know, so we all have our part, but it does come down to education. But we also happen to have a president right now that doesn't give a rip and, and actually rips on or doesn't, isn't afraid to make fun of or point out someone that's disabled so that there's a trickle down effect on how that goes.

It's, it's making the job of the disabled community that much more difficult and, and just trying to get a simple point across, you know, treatment.

Rob Valincius: I mean, look, um, you know, I, I'd imagine there's been, you know, it's, it's almost like this up and down wave of, you know, there's rules put in place, but then, you know, I work in the insurance world, so in.

Scott Martin: Oh, okay.

Rob Valincius: In Medicare. So I deal with a lot of seniors, a lot of people that have disabilities. That's on my regular, regular day.

And, um, you know, whoever comes into office, you know, and I, I try not to get into politics, but it's hard not to talk politics anymore in the world we live in. Um, but it doesn't matter who's in. Right. Um, you know, democrats, republicans, they all come up with these, these rules, right? That, that look good until you actually read what's going on and you're like, that's horrible for people.

Scott Martin: Um, I mean, aren't we aren't, we're, we're going through that exact same thing today because you and I are talking and Minneapolis just happened, you know?

Rob Valincius: oh

Scott Martin: Whenever this drops, people go, oh yeah, who knows where, where we're gonna be at by the time people listen to this. It's, God. Why can't we just be human?

You know? I don't know if we, I just got us off on a bad tangent, Rob,

Rob Valincius: No, no, no. I'm, I'm, look, I'm, I'm with you there because, um, you know, look, I'll say this in my world, right? You had, uh, you had Biden who talked to Big Game, and then he comes up with the, uh, the IRA, the inflection, the, uh, inflation Reduction Act, which on paper looked really good to help people, but it actually, it really screwed a ton of people, um, in my world.

Uh, you know, because, uh, basically they shifted blame on medications from, uh, the drug companies and they put it onto the insurance companies. And yeah, I'm not advocating insurance companies at all. They're evil as well. But if you put all that ownership on the insurance companies, it's gonna hit the, the people that really need medications, it's gonna hit those people that really need certain

Scott Martin: I all, you know what? All we have to do is look at, look to the north at how things are done in Canada. Why is it that I can get, uh, monthly flea and tick medicine for my dog for less than half the price from Canada, from less than Canada Pet care folks? Uh, they, maybe they could pay me a few bucks. Uh, that's we our stuff.

Why can't we just apply it? It's like the Epstein files where it's here, we talk about it, and then all of a sudden it's on page nine and they're expecting us to forget about it. And we forget about it whenever it comes to, you know, the drug, drug industry. Like, come on. Oh.

Rob Valincius: Or 99% of it's redacted, you know?

Scott Martin: God. Here, here's one person.

Oh, bag. We're getting off. I like this. Um, mark Cuban, you know what he's doing with his, his, uh, drug company? Yeah. It's like, I'm gonna be open another, I have to make some profit. What is it? 15%? It's what he gets the drugs for. Plus 15%. I think that's it.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. And honestly, I, I think, I think that's a, a great. Way to go. But the pro, I think the problem is, is who's the number one lobbyist of politics? It's the drugs, the drug

Scott Martin: Well, gun guns are right behind. Uh,

Rob Valincius: and, and guns. Right? We're so, so, and we're what, one of three countries that, that legally allow, um, you know, drug companies to have commercials.

Uh, which I also think is, is crazy. I mean, I,

Scott Martin: I didn't know about this. I didn't know about that. What is that? What we're looking for? I mean, I'm 67, man. Uh, holy shit. I'm supposed to now think about this too. It wasn't that, that wasn't there when I was a kid. Wasn't there when I was 40? Uh, so yeah, it's just, I don't understand humanity. It's, it's so different from what I grew the way I grew up, you know, going to church and I, I've, I followed a lot of, uh, what Walter Cronkite presented on the CBS news.

You know, here's the Vietnam War. Here's, here's what happened. Here's civil rights movement. Here's what happened. Bobby Kennedy was killed. Martin Luther King Jr. Was killed. What the man.

Rob Valincius: I mean, I, I, I, I, I grew up ri right? I was born in mid eighties. I grew up mainly in the two thousands, is, you know, obviously I was, we'll say nineties, two thousands, but more of my main years were in the

Scott Martin: and Bush. Okay.

Rob Valincius: Yeah. And, uh, you know, I, I'm, I wish we had the, like, here's my problem, all right? And I, now I'm going off on a

Scott Martin: Ah, what the hell?

Rob Valincius: I'm a tech guy.

All right. My degree's in it. I love technology. I'm born in it. I, it's, it's what I do. I, I crave technology and figuring it out and doing all this stuff, right? It's why I'm so into AI and all this other stuff. You would think as a society that we would be getting smarter with all this technology and all these tools and all these things that give us.

No, it's, it is actually making us dumber as a society and it's allowing people that are even worse to make decisions for us. And, you know, I, I don't, I don't know what the, what the answer is because that's, you know, I, I didn't go to school for politics. I, you know, I, I actually did take a, a, uh, was it, uh, poly science, political science?

I did, I did take a political science class in college and I thought it was interesting 'cause you get to kinda learn some of the background stuff, but, um, I don't know what the fix is. I do think that we are getting to a point where a two like, uh, Republicans and Democrats, like a, a two team system, whatever you wanna call it, a two party system is irrelevant because half the time you have, they're far left.

Far right. And, and a lot of the things, it's like, you know, I consider myself in the middle. You know, of a lot of these issues. I don't consider myself, I, I'm registered Democrat, but I don't consider myself one or the other. I, I, I kind of sit in the middle because sometimes, you know, Democrats wanna give everything away for free.

Republicans wanna take everything away, but you have to have a happy medium where some things you should be giving away for free. I mean, all this stuff that they just did to Medicaid and, uh, you know, for people that are unemployed, I mean, it is insane to

Scott Martin: let me, let me throw out something here, Robbie. Um, I substitute teach at the high school level. I love it still, you know, um, grades 10 through 12, there is something, and I've been doing this for, uh, six years now. There is something going on with these kids. I tell 'em about my story when they come into my high school as a sophomore.

'cause that's where it starts as a sophomore through senior. There's something about these kids. Yes, a bunch of them were totally fucked over with shutting down emotionally because of COVID. But there are some that get it, and I think they, they kind of remind me of. The flower children and, and the hippies of the late sixties.

Now those, those pastors are the ones that are in the Senate and the Congress right now that don't give a rip. Something happened to them. But there might be something in this generation that is in high school right now and you know, some of 'em are now in the college, 'cause I've been doing this for a bit, that they understand we don't want labels left, right?

We may end up seeing a third party out of this that is down the middle. We may, we may, I hope. But we both know, as with our age and are experiencing life, that it's probably gonna get nixed or nibbled into Bud as soon as it starts r raring a head up. I hope not, but it just might because it typically does, you know, whatever, whatever did happen, um.

Earth Day. I think it was 1972 I was in, in junior high. Our science teachers were just so ecstatic on, finally we're gonna do something. This was 72 man,

Rob Valincius: Yeah,

Scott Martin: were talking about, you know, we're running out of oil. That was the main thing. It, it wasn't about pollution yet. It was about running outta the oil.

Well, what's happened? Nothing. It still comes down to the almighty dollar, you know,

Rob Valincius: well now we just, you know, uh, take another country's president in the middle of the night and say, we got lots of oil, $18 trillion of

Scott Martin: and they're looking at, looking at Greenland, uh, Columbia and, uh, in Cuba at least, you know, because it's our, our hemisphere. Oh shit. We're, we're way off about, uh, I have, I'm a quad amputee man. Uh.

Rob Valincius: Uh, look, you know what though? That's the beauty of, of the podcast

Scott Martin: Uh, I like it. Well, that's,

Rob Valincius: I got 9 million questions over

Scott Martin: yeah, go for it,

Rob Valincius: if I don't get to, if I don't, don't, if I don't get to 85% of them, that means it's a good podcast. 'cause I don't have to sit here and figure out what the hell am I gonna

Scott Martin: my, my book doesn't actually drop until June nine, so we have time to, to do a reprise, a second episode. Okay.

Rob Valincius: Well, uh, look, let's, let's, so let's get back on track. Um, talk to me a little bit about the grieving process. You know, how did you, you know, obviously you got to the point where you hit the brick wall. How did you grieve finally grieve you that no longer

Scott Martin: I will capsulize, I will capsulize. I did something extremely dramatic. All right. So I resigned my position at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire because I realized that that program, I, it, it wasn't me anymore. I resigned in May, June, and we had been working on this for four years. We had a major, uh, um, medical malpractice trial.

Two weeks, $10 million came down to one thing. You know, if they would've run a freaking blood test when I originally presented, they would've, they would've seen I had a temperature 102.8. They would've found an issue with like blood cells. That was our point. Their point was it wouldn't have mattered. Now, their, their, their person in the know, um, in Women's Day was quoted as saying things would make a difference in a certain amount of time and it fit into ours.

But my attorney did not have that, uh, Jeanine Staple to Jeanette Stapleton from Women's Day arrive, or at least be on the phone there to contradict their, their person. So it was thrown out. Boom, we're done. I mean, it really came down to perception. Here's what was going on, Rob. During the trial, there was one point where I was told by my attorney, we don't want you in the courtroom 'cause we're bringing a psychiatrist.

I know damn well they were talking about, you know, being an athlete in the body and the is I'm prone to committing suicide. They were trying to pull the jury emotionally over Okay.

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Scott Martin: the trial. I was at a friend's house. When we got the phone call, I drove home at three, three levels to my apartment.

The bottom level was, uh, the garage. I pulled in and as I hit the, uh, the button for the garage door to, to go down, um, it came to my mind that a lot of people are probably thinking that I wouldn't turn off my car or maybe I'd go buy a pistol and end it. You know, it wouldn't surprise me. I use that as. My ammunition for myself.

I just said I, I didn't even question, never crossed. That's the only thing that crossed my mind was Jesus. I was laughing, you know, people are probably thinking this. I went upstairs to spend all night. I pulled CD after CD after cd, music out, and my cat was on my shoulder the whole time, basically. And coming up with a plan, how I was going to break myself down to build myself back up.

I went back to the beginning and within a couple of weeks I was heading out west to Washington state with my cat on my shoulder again, and a three day trip ahead of us. I had gotten rid of everything that didn't fit into my little car and all of my awards, the plaques, the medals, the trophies and all that shit.

Just got rid of it all. It's like, boom, I'm starting fresh, man. Starting fresh. That was the key pivot point. No holds barred, done. I was on food stamps working as an unpaid assistant for a guy at a small college that we had an agreement. Don't pay me, but you're gonna help me get a job again and get back up on my feeding coaching.

Okay. That was the gamble I ended up at Gonzaga and that went, people can read it in the book how that went. It wasn't so great because at the time I was supposed to come in and then move up as the head coach. As the head coach was leaving, they had a new athletic director who didn't know about the agreement and I ended up there as an assistant coach that someone didn't know what the hell she was doing.

So there is a time that which way, and I knew god damn well, I, this is what I'm gonna do. You know, I, here, I'll cut to the chase a bit. Rob. I ended up not, uh, I, I told the athletic director to take me off the consideration when the position came up the next year. 'cause he in person asked me to apply for the position.

I knew I had it instead, I ended up. Leaving soccer for 20 years and raising five adopted kids. Two from Romania, three from Ethiopia.

Rob Valincius: Wow.

Scott Martin: the heck? Yeah.

Rob Valincius: That's, uh, like polar opposite.

Scott Martin: But it was one of those things that I can't explain why that happened. It just happened and it actually set me up for the second half of the book where I took over a group of, not a team, but not bte, but C team, here's discrimination again, folks, uh, a a c team group of 12 year olds that they just, the club said, keep these kids involved so we can, you know, get the money in to keep the, the club going.

All right. Well, the attitude, it really that, here's where the book all boils down to Robbie is. That team, after we went through a summer of, uh, uh, losing in three championship matches, those kids gained and learned confidence in how to freaking play the game at a higher level. 'cause I trained him the way I did in my college players.

When the, when the State League of 18 matches came around, we went undefeated, won a state championship. Four, those kids advanced to the A team eight to the the B team. I was not asked to come back. I was not, nothing was said to me. 'cause I'm not afraid to say anything. I think people are figuring that out.

And uh, yeah, it was, there's another fork in the road, man, where I, I put all my chips down because I, I did what I believed in and those kids believed in me. And that's where this human thing we're talking about, about, you know, basically paraphrasing humanity can suck. This was a good story of what these 12 year olds did.

You know, here's. A guy with no hands training them. But what I focused on, Rob, was working on their confidence, but at the same time working on how they would play together. I didn't, I didn't worry about technical drills and shit like that. It's about how we can play together. It paid off. I mean, there's the book, boom right there.

You know, play from your heart comes from a statement I always had, and those kids did and ended up doing it. Uh, I'll jump a little ahead a little bit too, Robbie. Sorry, but man, but I ended up coming back to Wisconsin and took a group of 14 year olds, took us three years, won another state championship because the same philosophy I have as a, as a coach and as a a person and as a teacher about believing in who I'm working with.

And they ended up believing in themselves and look what they accomplished. A bunch of 'em went off to play in college. Uh, freaking amazing.

Rob Valincius: Look, sports, you know, I mentioned this earlier, uh, it's, I think it's not just physical, but it is highly mental. I mean, and, and you've seen it, right? I, I'm, I, I'm in, I'm in Philly. I, I'm a

Scott Martin: Oh yeah. Tough.

Rob Valincius: true and true. We're, we're tough here. Um, you know, the number one athlete that comes to mind, and I don't know if you're a basketball fan, but Ben Simmons, right?

You had this, this guy that was drafted. Number one, overall, a lot of expectations, right? Mentally, when you're getting drafted. Number

Scott Martin: Oh, hell yeah.

Rob Valincius: Um. First couple years. I mean, he killed it. I mean, didn't really have a jump shot, but he averaged, you know, tennis is a game. Uh, you know, 20 points. He was dunking on people.

I mean, he looked really good. He got that huge contract extension and then all of a sudden he couldn't stay healthy and he couldn't shoot, like, he literally lost his ability to shoot the ball in any concept. Um, he would just always pass, pass, pass, even if he, like, I think the thing that ended his tenure here is it was a playoff game.

He's sitting under the basket. It, it would would've won the game. He gets past the ball, he's literally, it's just a layup and he passes it out to give it to someone else and they missed and we lost the game. Um, and, you know, they talked a lot about the yips. And really at the end of the day, it's just your brain is telling you you

Scott Martin: Uhhuh. Uhhuh.

Rob Valincius: you're not good.

And you just basically forget how to play the sport that you're good

Scott Martin: Yeah. Yeah. Hey, are you Guy Philly's gonna sign Bobette,

Rob Valincius: I lot of talk. I think he's,

Scott Martin: uh, that's up there right now?

Rob Valincius: I think we're meeting with him, uh, they said over the next couple

Scott Martin: Yeah. I don't, I don't think it's a video call. I think he's, I, I hope he's flying to Philly. Um, I, I hope, because if you come in with Bobette and then you have Crawford in center field and, uh, the young guy then. If Bette plays second base and the young guy, ah, I can't remember his name, uh, ends up playing third base.

I mean, that's a great team. They have pitching and everything,

Rob Valincius: Um, boom.

Scott Martin: no, they're gonna trade. B they're gonna trade. Boom.

Rob Valincius: yeah. I look, uh, I, uh, from a Phillies perspective, as I got older, I appreciate baseball a lot more. I used to hate baseball. Um, football's my number one sport. I, I

Scott Martin: Well you got the Eagles, man. Yeah. So,

Rob Valincius: I can tell you everybody in the whole country, I'm very versed on, on football, basketball is my second playing is my first.

'cause I, yeah, it's my first love. And then, uh, baseball has slid into to third party comfortably. I've watched the most games this past year than I ever have in my adult life. Um, and I think it's just the speed of the game, even though like it's slower. Um, I do like that that the pitch clock has really sped the game up.

I mean, instead of it being three and a half hours, it's two and a half hours, you know? Uh, but, uh, the Phillies, I really appreciate them because they, they're consistent, but we're consistent in a bad way sometimes where we just lose games we should not lose. And, and especially

Scott Martin: Their record during the regular season has been going up a little over the last couple years, but their record in the playoffs has been going down. Yeah,

Rob Valincius: I tell people all the time, I would rather us get in as a wild card because I think that there's a lot less

Scott Martin: That fits. That fits the, that. Those players too. You know, the blue

Rob Valincius: story fits us very well. And it's the same thing with the, with, it's the same thing with the fucking eagles. I didn't want, I wanted them to play their starters, at least for the first half. Whoop up on the commanders, secure the second seed so we didn't have to worry about stuff. Now we play the San Fran, uh,

Scott Martin: But you're

Rob Valincius: I just,

Scott Martin: Oh no, you're

Rob Valincius: Fran doesn't play well here.

San Fran, they don't play well here. I get that. But I just, Shanahan is a really good coach and I think that sometimes people don't look at the, you know, your coach, right? They don't look necessarily, look at the coach as much as they should, and

Scott Martin: He's not dramatic. He does not draw attention. I respect the hell out of that. When I coach, I sit on the sidelines making notes, keep my fricking mouth shut at, at basketball. So you watch basketball, you see all the, the head coaches on the sideline, you know some, it's gotten into soccer a little bit. Hey, let me pitch something to see if I could pull you over.

My man. Watson World Cup matches. Watch. You know, the title of my book is Play From Your Heart. This is a level of play that you are going to see and here's where the title came from. Even when I was coaching, uh, my first teams of, of 10 year olds when I was a freshman in college, I always told them, turn off your brain and play from your heart too long of a title for a book.

So we, 'cause those guys are all gonna be at the level that they can turn off their brain. You will see mistakes because they're all watching a stupid little round thing, as we all know, as a ball. Too much. Oh, it drives me crazy. You will see so many people, so many players play from their heart. The artistic side of soccer is what something always pulled me.

I grew up with football, basketball, baseball, and soccer pulled me in. So by the time I was 16, boom, everything else was done. I was playing on, on, on the men's side and, and at the first division level, I mean, I at, at the artistic side of the game. Give it a try. Give it a try. See if you can see the concepts of the wide angle of how the whole team plays together, not just the individual players.

Rob Valincius: My Spanish buddies, uh, that I work with, uh, they, they're outta Miami. They've been trying to really get me into soccer. Uh oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're, uh, yeah, they, they're, they're big, uh, big soccer guys. Obviously from a cultural perspective, um, soccer's the number one sport, you know, overseas, and, uh, it's a, we're kind of an anomaly for the rest of the world.

Um, I, I do need to give it more of a chance. Same thing with hockey. I know hockey is fun to watch. Uh, it's just. The flyers have sucked so long that it's, it's, I, I need to have some skin in the game. I can't just watch a Sabers game because, you know, whatever. Or I, you know, we're born and bred here to hate the penguins, right?

So I, I can't just watch that for the joy of the game 'cause I'm not there yet. Same thing with baseball. I can't just, like, I, I, I wasn't gonna watch the World Series because

Scott Martin: Uh, that was a great world series though, man. You missed a good one.

Rob Valincius: I, I hate the Dodgers.

Scott Martin: What? See? But that's what makes it great. You got the Dodgers and the Yankees. Everybody says, screw you two. And the Mets with the open pocketbook, but they haven't been doing much. All right, now we're getting into a fricking Sports podcast. I.

Rob Valincius: It's, that's how, that's how it always

Scott Martin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rob Valincius: So. Um, you know, obviously you made it through the turmoil. I mean, you look good. Uh, you know, it looks like you, you got your head on your shoulders and you know, I, I think one thing I will say what you did, um, in today's world, I think if that happened to you now and you grew up now, a lot of kids would just roll over and die.

They would just give up because I think the mentality, maybe you could, you know, you deal with kids now, right? Maybe you can change my mind, but it seems like a lot of the generation now is just quick to give up. They don't have as much of that spunkiness and fight that your generation had that my generation, right?

I'm millennial, I guess technically. So my generation that's just kind of just gone. It's because I guess life has been very

Scott Martin: Here, here's something I would throw at you, bud.

Rob Valincius: Hit me.

Scott Martin: Over the years since I've been disabled. When after 20 years raising the kids and I went back working with players, ah, man, I don't know how many it's gotta be in the double digits. How many of my players end up writing an English paper and giving a speech and or giving a speech on me? They see something and it's a bit toned down, but they're not afraid to explore it. And they see the human side of what the hell is going on. I, I can't wait until, you know, some of them, there's some that I will send the book to. It's like, here, you deserve this. That they will, they've learned some things.

I think our hope, I'm sorry, but our hope is for this generation that's currently in high school and college. Because I think they see past the bullshit that we were tugged into, that we no longer believe in because we were lied to. I think they, they don't have to worry about the right and the left on things.

They're looking for something, and maybe for God's sake, summon will come out and say, let's do it differently. Yeah. Enough and, exactly, exactly. Enough bullshit.

Rob Valincius: So, so, um, what was your writing process like? Um, you obviously, you, you don't have hands, right? That's where we're gonna, we, we know, we've been talking about that, the whole podcast. Did you have to have someone write it for you? Did you use, uh, voice notes?

Scott Martin: When, when I, shortly after I got the myoelectric cans, these folks, I mean, it started out with hooks. I never wore the damn things outta the hospital. I grabbed the pencil and paper and I knew I had to change how I presented the program to my players. I couldn't play anymore and demonstrate and, you know, work with them and have fun with them on the field anymore.

I wrote, um, uh, a paper, I, I titled as the Soccer Atlas. Where are we going and how are we going to get there? I detailed everything, training sessions con certain concepts of how we would work. So if the, if the players had that, that's the base. I don't have to worry about that anymore. You, you know, the players are responsible.

If they, if they didn't understand the base or they didn't take the time to learn the base, then you're gone. I didn't worry about

Rob Valincius: Yeah.

Scott Martin: We can move forward and have been successful at doing it because I must have been able to do something well with that, that book, you know, the soccer atlas. Um, so that's where it really started.

No, I was, I wasn't giving up. I, I knew I couldn't do the things the same way I need to change. So I wrote, I wrote the manual and I got it out. To the players, you know, in the, in the program. And we worked off of that manual. And I've continued to follow, even though I've changed how I'm presenting my concepts and the expectations to players is I have changed so much, Rob.

I am, I'm so different from what I were, was before the illness. I've learned some things about life. I trust my players. I say, Hey, learn this. These are again, basic concepts. Stay within those. And I tell you what guys or folks, I'm not gonna ask you que or excuse me, I'm not gonna ask, ask you or excuse me, uh, back up again.

I'm gonna ask you more questions than I'm gonna tell you what to do. That I found is a, a trigger that, that better players will pick up on. Some are lost on the sidelines and those should just go do something else. I'm sorry, but at a competitive level, right. I've been successful. Since, uh, 2017 on following this, and I, I really would like to carry it forward.

I would like, I would, I think it would be cool to go try this philosophy at the college, maybe professional level. As a, an advisor, I found something that I really believe in and I, I, it's had proven results. Rely on the players. You know, I will not, um, tell you what to do. You know, I'm, I'm gonna ask you questions about what you think, get them to buy in.

I found that's a really be really, really good philosophy.

Rob Valincius: I mean if you look at the Eagles, Nick Siri, man, I mean, he is a player, he's a player's coach. Um, and when, you know, we, uh, we weren't big fans of him during his press conference 'cause he said some weird shit. Um, but you know, he's delivered, he's, uh, I think number two. Uh, we're number one in terms of winning percentage over a five year span.

Um, and he, he just, he clicks

Scott Martin: He wasn't afraid. Balls to the wall. He wasn't afraid to go challenge the status quo with his players. There's something to

Rob Valincius: I don't like that, that he likes to promote with from within when, you know, like our, our, our offensive coordinator has not done well this year. Um, you know, but, uh, I guess we'll see if he's still here next year. Depends on how we do in the playoffs.

Scott Martin: Ugh.

Rob Valincius: um, listen, it's been a pleasure having you on, but I do want to end on this 'cause I, I think that there's some value here in terms of like, reflection, right?

Um, if old Scott, before the accident, Scott met current Scott, what do you think you'd say to each other? What is, what is one thing.

Scott Martin: Let's go have a couple pints at a bar and talk about. Philosophy, soccer philosophy, because it's different from back then. Um, back then I was able to impress some people over in Europe. That's how I got my gig at Nike. Rob was through what wa a guy I had met early on in my career, in his career that ended up be becoming the Dutch, uh, Olympic team coach.

I met him again the year before. Um, and he told me, you know, what the hell are you talking about? Which is strange for an a European telling an American, but I still had some learning to do. I freaking now am totally comfortable and confident on how to present. So the old one would ask the new one. Yeah, let's go to a bar, have a couple of beers and uh, let me bring a, uh, a pencil and a pad of paper. 'cause I would,

Rob Valincius: That's awesome. I like that. I like that. 'cause philosophy change,

Scott Martin: Oh yeah.

Rob Valincius: people based on, I think what makes us human is, uh, obviously all the trials and tribulations that we deal with, but it's not those, it's, it's what defines you is how you come out on the other

Scott Martin: Yeah. Very cool. Yeah, well said. Well said.

Rob Valincius: So plug it, man. Plug away. Where, where can people find your book? Find your info. I know it's not out until June, so we're, we're, uh, kind of

Scott Martin: I'm working with a, a small publisher. God. I went through the process. I ended up working with two different agents, fired. The last one who wanted to go to the route of the, the big five publishers. I ended up saying, screw it, I'm gonna take it over myself. I found a great publisher out of New York independent publisher, uh, library Tales Publishing, and, uh, who has, uh, Simon Schuster as our distributor.

Simon Schuster is so freaking big, they've dropped the ball on us so many times. Um, I was told. By, uh, by the end of next week. So by, uh, ninth, 16th of January, the book is supposed to be up on Amazon finally for presale. Uh, until then, if we drop or if, if they don't come through on what they've promised, people can Google Scott Martin, M-A-R-T-A on Scott Martin book, simple.

Scott Martin book probably could be number one, maybe number two, library tales. Click on that. They'll take care of you. 'cause we're up for pre-sale on my publisher's website. They've got their shit together and click on that pre-sale book. What I wanna do, Rob, this is a co competitive person to me, by the time we drop on June 9th, I want that book to be a bestseller.

We've got something that is so freaking different from what's going on in the world right now that I hope people pick up on it. All right? It's a process. We got five months. We got five months. And, uh, I love this crunch. It's crunch time, man. Five months. It's crunch time. We've gotta go.

Rob Valincius: I've had a lot of authors on my show and, uh, it's always, it's never the book. I mean, the book takes you to some places that you don't want to go sometimes, but it's always the other stuff that you have to deal with, uh, that tends to make everything

Scott Martin: Yeah. Great point.

Rob Valincius: I know publishing and all that is,

Scott Martin: Oh, it's wicked. It's wicked. Yeah. It's wicked process. No,

Rob Valincius: Now, I will say this, uh, let me know when it comes up on Amazon. I'll

Scott Martin: I will send that to you.

Rob Valincius: and I will buy it because I always like to support anyone that's

Scott Martin: I better get you a free one. I'll, I'll, I'll let my publisher know what's going

Rob Valincius: I'll still buy it. I'll still buy it 'cause I understand. I understand how it is. But, uh, if you, I'm also an audiobook guy, so do you have any

Scott Martin: I don't, I don't know, because here's what's happening in February. My publisher, usher Morgan, he's great. He also does film. Uh, he's an amazing guy. He works his ass off, uh, and he supports what I'm doing, like 110%. Um, he has said that in February is the big, he is going to sit down with Simon and Schuster and Barnes and Noble and pitch both of them on the book.

So all of these, I've got, this is podcast number 15, I think I've got 35, 30 to 35 podcasts to go. Plus, uh, we're, we're starting to be picked up by journalists across the country, across, I spoke with someone from England, not just the other day, um, that we're, we're going to try to do this, and by that time it'll, it's gonna be getting picked up.

It's, it's gonna start picking up more and more momentum, I think, because of the message. You know? Yeah,

Rob Valincius: if you want, um, if you want my opinion, which I'm just a little peon over here. Uh, I'm a big audio book guy and if you do

Scott Martin: I hope, I hope if he pitches Simon and Schuster, I think if it's gonna be carte blanche for them, I hope because it's gonna come from them with green light guys, you know? Go for it in every sort of form you want to do hard cover, soft cover, whatever you want to do. I think Usher has to wait to hear from, uh, the people with the deep pockets at Simon and Schuster.

Rob Valincius: it. If, if you can do it. Um, I've had some of the authors that I've had on my show, they do their own, they read their own novel. I, I don't know if you can do it. I feel like for, for someone that, that wrote your, you with your story, you've got a great voice. I think. I think you could really sell it doing, doing the, uh, audio

Scott Martin: it.

Rob Valincius: Just, just think

Scott Martin: I know I, I believe in what I'm doing. I believe in the message, and if I really have it in my head of we're making a difference, I don't care what I'm asked to do, I will do it.

Rob Valincius: I think you should. I think, I think it would be, it would go really well. Hey, and if you need a cheap guy, I'd be happy to do it for you too. You

Scott Martin: You got it, my man. Yeah,

Rob Valincius: but listen, uh, it was a pleasure having you on. Um, my podcast is DrinOClockPod on all socials, drink o’clock podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts.

We'll have this episode up, um, in the near future. And, uh, look, man, let's, let's, uh, do this again when you get a bestseller

Scott Martin: I hope so. Pros my friend.

Rob Valincius: Thank you. Cheers. Boom.

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