Like ‘Groundhog Day’: Pandemic latest in a life of adjustments for former UK player
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a weekly series in which the Herald-Leader is catching up with former University of Kentucky athletes.
During the coronavirus pandemic, there’s a sameness to life for former Kentucky basketball player Gimel Martinez. He’s hunkered down with his wife and two sons in Columbus, Ohio, where he lives and works.
“Not traveling the last few months, it seems like ‘Groundhog Day,’” he said, referencing the 1993 movie in which Bill Murray must relive the same day again and again.
“My honey-do list has gotten quite large,” Martinez said.
A sedentary lifestyle of uniformity is a big change for Martinez, who could be considered a multi-cultural man of the world. The son of immigrants who fled Cuba during the Castro revolution, he was a first-generation United States citizen. Joining the UK team in 1990, he began navigating the cultural divide between Miami and Lexington.
The change from Cuban cuisine to a diet based on meat and potatoes was an adjustment.
“One of the biggest things was my first experience talking with Richie Farmer,” Martinez said with a chuckle. “Talking to him for about five minutes and not knowing what the hell we were talking about.”
Of course, Farmer was a Kentucky high school basketball phenom and a Kentuckian to the core.
With his friends in Miami, Martinez said they spoke a combination of English and Spanish words known as “Spanglish.” At Kentucky, he said he would think in Spanish, but instantly translate to English as he spoke.
“Now, I think I’m like the opposite,” he said. “When I’m talking to my grandmother or great aunt, I’m thinking more in English. I’m trying to translate some of the words back to Spanish. I guess I’m all screwed up now.”
After four seasons for Kentucky, Martinez played three years in Japan, a summer in Puerto Rico and spent a month in France on “kind of a trial deal.”
Wanted to coach
Martinez decided he wanted to become a coach. So he returned to the Columbus area, where his wife, Missy, grew up, and enrolled at Ohio Dominican University. Gimel and Missy met as UK freshmen and married shortly after their senior years.
His father-in-law asked Martinez to help out in the family business, WH Humphrey, which sells lift equipment like hoists and cranes to construction and manufacturing companies and steel mills. Martinez, who turns 49 on June 14, has worked for the company for 21 years. He is now a vice president for sales and co-owner.
“I guess once I got involved with the business, I ended up just staying on,” he said, “and kind of saved my coaching for my two boys.”
Gimel Jr. — known as “Gimmy” — and Myles were coached by their father in AAU basketball. And for the last six years, Martinez has been an assistant coach at the boys’ high school.
Gimmy, 22, works as an emergency medical technician. He is studying to be a paramedic and hopes to become a firefighter.
Myles was a freshman at Ohio Dominican University this past school year. He is a pitcher on the baseball team. Martinez said that Myles is recovering from Tommy John surgery and hopes not to lose the redshirt year he was supposed to have in 2019-20.
Many UK memories
Martinez played for UK from the 1990-91 season through 1993-94. To say the least, it was an eventful period in which Rick Pitino guided the program from the depths of an NCAA ban from postseason play to advancement to the 1993 Final Four.
Contributing to teams that won three straight Southeastern Conference tournaments (1992, 1993 and 1994) stand out, Martinez said.
So does “a big victory” over Florida State in the 1993 NCAA Tournament Southeast Region finals.
“That was a little bittersweet because Florida State had recruited me very hard,” Martinez said.
One of his former teammates at Miami Senior High, Doug Edwards (older brother of future UK player Allen Edwards), played for Florida State.
“I was close to going to Florida State,” Martinez said. “But after my trip to Kentucky, I fell in love with Kentucky.”
Of course, Martinez played for Kentucky against Duke in the 1992 East Region finals, the so-called Christian Laettner game. When CBS replayed that game this spring, Martinez watched the entire game for the first time.
“That was kind of cool sitting there with my kids watching it,” he said. “Of course, they were giving me a hard time. We tease each other a lot. They were giving me a hard time and critiquing my play. ‘Hey, you didn’t block out there!’ ‘You fouled that guy. You shouldn’t have fouled!’
“It was fun just to razz each other a bit.”
A home loss to Pittsburgh in November 1992 also stands out. It cost Pitino a chance to return to New York as a triumphant coach. UK would have advanced to the Preseason NIT semifinals in Madison Square Garden.
“We had three-a-days for about a week with Coach Pitino,” Martinez said. “It definitely made an impression. It’s a bad memory because we got extra practice time, and Coach Pitino took full advantage of that. I think those were the days before the 20-hour rule.”
Another vivid memory was more personal in nature. It came in a largely forgotten game. UK beat Alabama 107-83 on Feb. 12, 1992. Playing against his nemesis, Robert Horry, Martinez scored a career-high 26 points and grabbed a career-high 10 rebounds.
“He didn’t like me and I didn’t really like him, either,” Martinez said of a competition that included trash talking, elbows and blood. “No love lost there.”
Q and A
Question: What do you remember most about Coach Pitino?
Answer: “Great teacher. From your fundamentals to preparation, we were always very well prepared. He taught you that in certain situations if you’re doing this, this is the reason why you’re doing it. A lot of the stuff I learned from him is the way I tried to teach kids I coached.”
Q: Was there ever a time when you questioned picking UK?
A: “No. But jokingly, after our first day of conditioning, Jamal (Mashburn) and I laid in bed extremely sore and tired. It was training like we’d never done before. And jokingly, I said, I should have gone to UM (University of Miami). He said, ‘I should have gone to St. John’s.’ I’m very proud and very happy with my decision to be a Wildcat and go to UK. That was obviously a life-changing experience.”
Q: If you hadn’t picked UK, which college would you have gone to?
A: “Florida State was definitely a school that I was looking at. Coach (Wade) Houston had recruited me pretty heavily at Tennessee, and I was considering them. I hadn’t taken my visit to see them yet. As a matter of fact, when I visited Kentucky, it was when Kentucky was playing Tennessee. And Coach Houston was there and Coach Monte Towe was there. They both kind of looked at me. I think they kind of knew, uh oh, this might not be good.”
Q: What is your favorite on-court memory as a Wildcat?
A: “Probably my career highs in the Alabama game. Then, obviously, just being part of SEC championships, especially my senior year. I don’t think we were favored. I think everybody was thinking Arkansas. It was nice to pull that one off.”
Q: What’s the most recent UK sporting event you attended?
A: “When they had us come for recognition of the 1993 Final Four team” during Kentucky’s game against Utah in 2018 in Rupp Arena.
Q: Who has been your favorite UK player to watch during the past few seasons?
A: “I kind of like like (Tyler) Herro. He was a good little ballplayer. And I really liked the big kid who left this year. Nick Richards. I like how he has developed.”
Q: Who was your sports idol growing up?
A: “I was a big Magic Johnson guy. And then one of the guys I tried to mimic my game a little bit like was Kevin McHale. Because back then it was all post play and there wasn’t as much three-point shooting. And I wasn’t really a three-point shooter. A lot of the up-and-unders and ball faking and working your way around defenders down on the block. That was some of the stuff I tried to pick up and mimic.”
Q: What do you wish someone had told you before you began your college sports career?
A: “Just to be prepared, and what I mean by that is, physically and mentally. When you go from high school to the college level, especially at the D-1 level or high D-1, you go from high school where three, four, maybe five good athletes play to now you get 10 really good athletes who were all top players on their teams. I didn’t come in physically ready. I was too skinny and not strong enough to hold my own in the post.”
Q: What is your biggest regret from your time at Kentucky?
A: “I should have shot more (laughs). I passed up too many shots. That’s all I’d hear from my buddies in Miami when I’d return home. ‘Man, why are you passing up those shots?’”
Q: Which of your former UK teammates do you stay in contact with the most?
A: “Henry Thomas. That’s where I’m going right now. To our lake house. He and his family are coming up tomorrow. My wife and I are godparents to his second daughter.”
This story was originally published June 8, 2020 at 7:23 AM.
