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Martin's Family Now Wears Orange University of Tennessee Athletics
Martin's Family Now Wears Orange
KNOXVILLE -- Cuonzo Martin's first public comments as Tennessee's new basketball coach were directed to the person sitting on the front row wearing orange: His wife.
After being officially introduced as the Vols' 18th head coach to a room packed with media and Tennessee supporters, Martin with his deep and calm voice thanked everyone for the applause and looked directly at his wife, Roberta, sitting with their children Joshua, Chase and Addison, and thanked her.
"She's basically my right hand," Martin said. "She's everything to me, so I want to acknowledge her. Roberta Martin."
Monday's introduction of Martin was indeed a family affair. He pointed to the patriarchs of the Tennessee family: Mears, King, Grunfeld and Ellis, along with Ward, Manning and Summitt. Then he pointed to the current family, sitting beside Roberta and in the row behind her: the players he'll be coaching.
He met them only Sunday night at 11:30 in a brief but direct introduction. He thanked them for being there so late because they didn't have to attend. Theoretically, at least.
"I told those guys I appreciated the fact that they were there at 11:30 at night," Martin said. "They didn't have to be there ... which, they did have to be there."
"He just said he wants the best out of the players," said Cameron Tatum, who will be a senior next season. "He didn't necessarily say as a player, but as a person, as a human being on and off the court. You better show up to class on time. You better show up to basketball practice on time. Everything correlates with each other. If you're going to be a good person off the floor, you've got to be a great person on the floor as well. Just trying to get the best out of you as a person - that's what his main message was, and everything else will carry itself."