But Martin, eager to enhance his resume and expand his career, reached out to Quinn, a sport management classmate, to see if anything was available at NBC. Quinn talked to some of the directors, one of them being John Gilmartin, widely known in the sports broadcasting business as “Johnny G.”

Gilmartin eventually hired Martin to be his summer intern for 1996.

“When I say hired, that means I was working totally for free for those last couple of credit hours,” Martin recalled, laughing.

As luck would have it, Martin’s internship role at NBC included the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, and he immediately demonstrated his value as a dedicated worker, problem solver and creative thinker.

“The great thing for me was the summer of ’96 was the Atlanta Olympics, and being with NBC, they were doing a lot of remote work even then, and they had nine fiber lines running between Atlanta and New York,” Martin said. “It was one of the first times anything like that was ever done, and so on the second floor of 30 Rock is where they played back a lot of their Olympic programming.

“I wasn’t actually on-site in Atlanta, but I worked the Olympics all summer out of New York, so it was kind of a lucky time for me to be there,” he added.

In addition to the Olympics, Gilmartin’s other major role with NBC Sports was serving as its director of the NFL on NBC Pregame Show and NBA Showtime. Incidentally, it was WVU graduate Jim Fagan’s voice over narration that was used for NBC’s 1990s NBA coverage, which will be reproduced by artificial intelligence for next year’s regular season and playoffs when the network regains the NBA rights. Fagan, who came to WVU on a football scholarship in 1963 and graduated in 1967, died in 2017.

Nevertheless, Martin quickly recognized Gilmartin’s influence in sports broadcasting, and he wisely hitched his wagon to him.

“Once the Olympics ended, I said to him, ‘Hey, I’ve got nothing else going on after the Olympics and I’d like to stay in New York and continue to freelance.’ So (Gilmartin) talked to a producer, and they hired me to work as a production assistant on NFL on NBC and then NBA Showtime.

“That kind of turned into a career in freelance television pretty much since ’96, and on and off, I’ve done at least one event with NBC ever since,” Martin said.

Martin’s freelance assignments with NBC Sports through the years have run the gamut from the NBA Finals, Super Bowl XXXII, Summer and Winter Olympics, snowboarding and extreme skiing to professional golf.

When you work freelance, that essentially means a handshake is your contract and nothing is guaranteed. But Martin bet on himself and continued to do this for 24 years until longtime NBC golf director Doug Grabert retired at the end of 2020.

By then, Martin was focusing mainly on golf and the Olympics, and he had risen to the point where he became Grabert’s relief director for nearly a decade working various golf tournaments, including several PLAYERS Championship events at TPC Sawgrass. One year, when Grabert’s son graduated from college, Martin directed NBC’s coverage when Matt Kuchar won the event.

So, in 2020, when Grabert decided to hang it up, Martin became his logical replacement.

“After 25 years working for NBC, they finally decided to hire me as a staff employee,” Martin chuckled.

Legendary golf producers Tommy Roy and Tom Randolph were on board with the move.

“I wouldn’t be doing this without them,” Martin admitted.

Since then, Martin has directed NBC’s coverage of the U.S. Open championships at Torrey Pines, The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, Los Angeles Country Club and last year’s Open in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

His Open Championship work included taking the world feed from last year’s event at Royal Troon Golf Club for NBC viewers. During this year’s Open, to be held July 17-20 at Royal Portrush in Antrim, Northern Ireland, Martin will get the opportunity to cut the show for NBC for the first time in a few years.

“I’m pretty excited about this opportunity because this is our chance to cut it for the last five hours and really put our NBC stamp on the coverage,” he said.