- File Photo/Daily
By: Courtney Ratkowiak
Managing Editor
Published October 22nd, 2009
Fielding Yost, Michigan’s first athletic director, built Michigan Stadium at a time when the idea of seating 100,000 people in a “hole-in-the-ground” stadium was seen as unnecessary and unprecedented. In convincing fashion, he proved his dissenters wrong by attracting a sellout crowd in the 1927 home dedication game. The stadium currently remains the most prominent symbol of Yost’s influence on Michigan athletics.
- File Photo
- Bill Martin speaks to reporters at Weber's Inn on November 7, 2002.
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Though Bill Martin — who announced his retirement as athletic director yesterday — didn’t have to build the stadium from the ground up, the $226 million Big House renovation project that broke ground in 2007 is the epitome of what will likely be his lasting legacy.
With the Michigan Stadium renovations almost complete and the re-dedication ceremony scheduled for next year’s football season opener, Martin announced his Sept. 4, 2010 retirement in a letter to University President Mary Sue Coleman and during an Athletic Department staff-wide meeting in Cliff Keen Arena.
Martin, who championed the role of a nearly autonomous athletic director in a job where he stayed much longer than he originally intended, will leave his mark on Michigan athletics in a nearly unparalleled fashion. His legacy spans from quelling internal financial concerns to spearheading the renovation and construction of numerous athletic facilities.
In his letter to Coleman, Martin made it clear that with his most treasured construction projects now either approved or nearing completion, it was time to step down.
“We’ve discussed my retirement for a couple of years now, and I agreed to stay on to make sure the (football) stadium project would be finished as planned,” Martin wrote. “In the last few months I have had the chance to make significant progress on other issues that needed to be set on a firm foundation as well, including plans for the basketball practice facility, so I think it is now time to plan for the future.”
Associate Athletic Director Bruce Madej said he was "caught by surprise" when Martin announced his retirement. Madej knew that Martin was likely planning to retire after he launched the construction of the aforementioned $23 million basketball practice facility, scheduled to be completed in 2011, but said he thought Martin would retire in January 2011 instead of next September.
The regents approved the construction of the basketball practice facility in January 2009 and approved schematic designs in September 2009.
"If you read between the lines, after the (Michigan) Stadium renovations, he had one more project that he wanted to do — the basketball facilities that he got off the ground," Madej said. "Once that was set, I knew he had accomplished what he wanted to.”
Martin also oversaw the construction of the Al Glick Field House, a $26.1 million indoor football practice facility that opened in August 2009. Other Martin-led projects have included the completed Alumni Field ($5.5 million) and Fisher Stadium ($9 million) renovations and the $6 million construction of a new soccer stadium, approved by the regents in May 2009.
But even while dealing with teams that haven’t needed as much hands-on leadership or massive facility overhauls, Martin’s business sense has been apparent.
“I showed him my idea of putting a balcony in Yost (Ice Arena), and he said, ‘It’s a no-brainer, we have to do it,’” Michigan hockey coach Red Berenson said. “I’d been talking about that for five years and nobody listened. But Bill Martin could see, ‘Look, this will pay itself off in three years and it’ll make the building that much more hospitable and add so much to the building.’ He’s been very supportive of anything we’ve needed in the hockey program.”
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Over the past decade, Martin has also had a hand in bringing many of Michigan’s current coaches to Ann Arbor. But his reputation for selecting coaches may rest most on the success of football coach Rich Rodriguez, who was hired by Martin in December 2007.
