Martin Brings LA Marathon Championship Experience Home as Jackson High Coach
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
April 23, 2026
Nathan Martin has the best possible example a coach can give when it comes to the old phrase, “It’s never over, until it’s over.”
Last month, the Jackson cross country head coach and track assistant captured national attention when he miraculously came from behind to win the Los Angeles Marathon.
The winning margin was one hundredth (0.01) of a second.
“I didn’t really know if I won,” said Martin. “I tried not to get too emotional or celebrate too much. Then people around me started confirming it.”
Martin, 36, was running his race when, with about five miles to go, he had a surge and passed the pack he was with to get comfortably into second place.
“There was only one guy to catch at that point; he was so far ahead,” Martin said. “I couldn’t even see him. At that point, it was like, ‘Okay, let’s push, let’s finish, be strong, and all that kind of stuff.”
Slowly, the leader came into focus.
“Within the last mile, I’d say, he came into view,” Martin said. “By 800 meters to go I thought I had a serious shot to try and win.
“I made one final surge. That last 800 was super painful. I was thinking to myself maybe I’ll catch him, maybe I won’t, but I definitely wanted to make sure I crossed that finish line with no regrets, knowing I left everything out there.”
As he and the leader, Michael Kimani Kamau of Kenya, approached the finish, the crowed braced for the finish.
“It was the last 50 to 80 meters where the true opportunity to win presented itself and I took full advantage of it,” Martin said. “When I crossed the line, it was so close. I was trying to hold back the excitement and emotions and all of that kind of stuff. People started confirming it, and it was surreal. I just started absorbing the moment and everything going on.”
He credits his own coach, James McCurdy, with preparing him with everything from the right nutrition to handling the Los Angeles heat to the running strategy.”
“It was painful, but I still had something left in the tank,” he said. “If the race would have been a couple miles longer, I would have been okay (to finish).”
Martin finished with a personal best time of 2 hours, 11 minutes, 16.5 seconds. It was the closest finish in LA Marathon history.
“It was pretty special,” Martin said.
Martin was born in Chicago Heights, Ill., and moved with his family to Three Rivers before he started school. He began running in middle school and competed throughout high school. He ran the mile in high school and the 5K in college.
“I had a lot of success in my running journey,” he said. “Eventually, my coach thought I had what it takes to run a marathon.”
It wanted until late in his college career at Spring Arbor University that Martin ran his first marathon. He was 23.
“I won the 10K, then 36 hours later I won the marathon,” he said. “My coach was like, ‘Okay, you need to do this.’”
Martin is now a professional runner and has sponsors. He was at the Boston Marathon on Monday making appearances and connecting with people in the running community.
After college he began substitute teaching while trying to advance his running career. That’s when he launched his coaching career.
“There was a year where I was substitute teaching and going to races to try and place well,” he said. “By year two or three, I was coaching and I’ve continued that on.”
Martin said coaching is rewarding, “Especially seeing a kid overcome some kind of challenge.
“It’s being able to use my experiences to give back,” he added. “I want to help kids along their running journey. Even if they don’t become a big-time runner, I hope the types of lessons they learn, they can apply in life.
“Just see them be able to fight through something makes me feel like I am making a positive impact in the world.”
Martin has run fewer than 20 marathons in his life. “If you are training at an insanely high level, you usually look at doing one, maybe two or three a year,” he said.
He has taken some time away from marathon training recently as he’s made several national appearances.
And an assistant at Jackson this year, he said he’s noticed a buzz around the distance runners.
“There’s way more interest in distance running,” he said. “Normally they give me my two minutes of fame, then they are back to being high school students. This has been different. They’ve made me feel like definitely I’ve done something.”
He will begin ramping up his training and plans on competing in a half marathon soon, then has set his sights on either the New York or Chicago Marathon.
“It’s been pretty cool,” he said of the running community in Jackson. “They’ve been showing me a lot of love, and they are super proud. If I did Chicago, I imagine I would get a chunk of people down to watch. I’ve had so many people supporting me. It’s a really good feeling.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a news and sports reporter at the Adrian Daily Telegram and the Monroe News for 30 years, including 10 years as city editor in Monroe. He's written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. He is now publisher and editor of The Blissfield Advance, a weekly newspaper. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Nathan Martin, middle with clipboard, coaches his Jackson distance runners. (Middle) Martin poses for a photo with a community award he received from the school. (Photos courtesy of Nathan Martin.)
In 'Turn & Burn,' Kent III Gives Voice Again to Father's Life Lessons, Coaching Wisdom
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 29, 2025
As his son, his player and during their time coaching together, Warren Kent III was front row for the words of wisdom often shared by his father Warren Kent Jr., who coached a multitude of sports at seven schools over more than three decades.
But as the years have rolled on after his father’s death in 2017, Kent III began to realize something most disheartening – he’d forgotten the sound of his dad’s voice.
In an attempt to regain that memory, Kent III has given us all an opportunity to listen.
His book – “Turn & Burn” – is the story of a son growing to love baseball under the tutelage of his father, a teacher and coach of the local varsity. The seeds for that love of the game are planted during the summer of 1984 – coinciding with the Detroit Tigers’ most recent World Series championship season.
Technically, the story is fiction. But it’s set in Fulton Township, which lies just west of US-127 between St. Johns and Ithaca, where Kent Jr. was indeed a coach and Kent III grew up and attended Fulton High School. And all of the information on the Tigers’ historic run that season – including game-by-game synopses of all 162 plus eight in the playoffs – is true as well and easily will connect with fans who, like Kent III, grew up during that unforgettable summer.
“That was my thing. I wanted people to get the feelings I had with the ’84 Tigers and sharing that with my dad as I was growing up,” he said. “My outlet is writing, so this is really a catharsis, just to get this out there, to let other people know the love of the Tigers but more the love of my father and things we went through together.”
Kent III was five months old when the Tigers won their 1968 World Series championship, but 16 in 1984. He said his book is about 70 percent factual, but even the imagined is rooted in reality.
The main character in “Turn & Burn” – EJ – is 12 years old because that seemed a more reasonable age to fall in love with the sport, and by 16 Kent III was well into his baseball fandom. The father in the book is a teacher and coach. Kent Jr. was a special education teacher for more than four decades and his son’s baseball coach at Fulton High School but just for freshman year before moving into the stands for the remainder of Kent III’s four-year varsity career.
Kent III began coaching baseball himself when he was 18 and served as North Muskegon’s varsity coach for 15 years, including 11 with Kent Jr. as his assistant. At one point in “Turn & Burn” players write EJ’s dad’s initials on their hands because he had been hospitalized after a heart attack; North Muskegon players did the same when Kent Jr. had a heart attack prior to a Pre-District game in 2005.
“Some of it’s been changed. Some of it’s been realistic,” Kent III said. “(But the dad) is definitely my dad’s voice.
“I put him in charge of the outfielders at North Muskegon, and that was his one motto – ‘Turn and burn.’ The kids could probably tell you that over and over, (that’s) the one thing Coach Kent would always say.”
A source of many of the fatherly pearls of wisdom found in “Turn & Burn” came from a journal-style “father’s legacy” book Kent III had purchased for his dad years before and asked him to fill out. Kent Jr. passed those on not only to his children but during a coaching run that took him to Hudsonville, Ashley, Fulton, Vestaburg, Blanchard Montabella and Greenville, where notably he led the football program to its first playoff appearance in 2000.
Writing has long been a love for Kent III, who taught English and journalism for 32 years – and served as a yearbook advisor for three decades – while at Battle Creek Central and then the final 27 years at Muskegon Mona Shores. Prior to becoming a teacher, Kent III was “Journalist of the Year” at Ferris State while sports editor of the student newspaper and then moved on to study and serve as sports editor of the paper at Michigan State.
He has written for the Big Rapids Pioneer, Lansing State Journal and Battle Creek Enquirer, among others over the years, and after retiring from teaching at Mona Shores this spring took a position with Walsworth Yearbooks helping schools all over the state with their yearbook programs.
Kent III also is in his 34th year as an MHSAA registered official. He wrote a piece once for Referee Magazine about his experience officiating the 2011 Class D Girls Basketball Final at Breslin Center, home of his beloved Spartans. He’s more recently officiated Basketball Semifinals at Breslin during the 2023 and 2024 seasons and has returned to the baseball diamond as an umpire as well after umping baseball and softball earlier in his career.
Writing a book came to Kent III during the COVID-19 pandemic, as he like many searched for something to occupy spare time. “Turn & Burn” is available exclusively via Amazon; click for details.
The venture was never about making money, but he’s sold 152 books – well above his goal of 100. And while Kent III still has not come across any recordings or voicemails of his father’s voice, “Turn & Burn” has given him a chance to hear Kent Jr.’s words once again.
“The sound, no. But the things and the ways he would say them, yes,” Kent III said. “Everybody else says they can picture his voice. I think it’s because, I’m assuming being his son, my voice probably sounds familiar to his to other people, but I can hear the things he’s saying. And in that book, the way he’s saying them.”
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PHOTOS (Top) At left, Warren Kent III sits in the front row of a team photo as manager for dad Warren Kent Jr.'s 1979 Fulton baseball team; Kent Jr. is sitting far left of second row from bottom. At right, Kent III today. (Middle) "Turn & Burn" is Kent III's first published book. (Below) The Kents anchor a photo with North Muskegon players and their District championship trophy in 2009. (Photos provided by Warren Kent III.)