San Marcos High School Coach profiled in new book

Amira Van Leeuwen | Staff Reporter

When author and coach Martin Davis first pitched the idea for his book, “Thirty Days with America’s High School Coaches,” his publisher rolled his eyes and said, “I just don’t think anyone cares about high school football.”

Davis thought he was wrong. “Give me a chance to prove it to you,” he said. 

“If you look at what’s on the shelves, there’s very little about the high school years, which to my mind are the most informative,” Davis said.

He thinks high school is a difficult stage where kids’ athletic dreams get crushed.

“You know you think at seven-years-old you’re going to play in the NFL, by the time you get to high school, it’s obvious you’re not,” Davis said.

It wasn’t long before he began contacting State High School Athletic Associations and told them what he wanted to do. But Davis was fearful that he would get some interviews that would sound exactly the same.

Luckily, that wasn’t the case.

“Thirty Days with America’s High School Football Coaches” features short stories from coaches across the country of different backgrounds and experiences.

Davis interviewed over 130 coaches and used 27 of them in his book. San Marcos Co-offensive Coordinator Marvin Nash was one of them.

Nash has 16-years of coaching experience at both the middle school and high school levels. He’s coached football, basketball, track and wrestling.

Nash said he was “really humbled” when Davis reached out to him in early 2020.

Davis said he has a lot of great coaches in his book but if he had to choose one to coach his kid, he would choose Nash.

Readers will find Nash’s story at the beginning of the book. It focuses on his path to coaching and his coaching philosophy.

Part of Nash’s coaching philosophy is to know every person by name and what they need from a coach. He says he makes it a big point to know every person by first and last name, know who they are and what they need to be successful.

“It gives you credibility,” Nash said.

“There are coaches to this day that I talked to that were exactly the people I need in my life at the time and I wouldn’t be in this position without their guidance, without their leadership. And so, I want to be that for every student that I encounter, I want to be who I needed when I was young,” Nash said.

Nash says the first thing he noticed when he got to San Marcos was the kids’ work ethic.

“They’re here early in the morning, ready to work. They go to school all day long and then they’re here late in the afternoon,” Nash said.

Nash says that his goal for the San Marcos Highschool Rattler football program is to give back the community’s investment with victory. He places a lot of emphasis on the importance of finding ways to win in aspects of everyday life.

“Victory is not always winning every game,” Nash said. “But it’s also won in the heart of each kid that we coach. Meaning, that they’ll see things the way that we as coaches see them – that we’re going to be successful, we’re going to be responsible, we’re going to be accountable for the things that we need to do.”

Davis said the origin of the idea for the book began with his youngest son’s relationships with his coaches.

“He was a really gifted athlete,” Davis said. His son started wrestling when he was five, he played soccer, football, basketball and skateboarded, but he still struggled in school.

“By the time he started high school, in his ninth-grade year, we were really concerned that we would even get him through. I think he was so emotionally beat up,” Davis said.

But after trying out for the freshman football team at Riverbend High School in Fredericksburg, Virginia, his son immediately formed a bond with the coaches. From that point forward Davis and his wife realized that during football season, they had no trouble getting him to school.

“When the season ended, we had problems, but they [the coaches] understood those problems. And when no one else could criticize him or push him they [the coaches] could,” Davis said.

“Thirty Days with America’s High School Coaches” is on sale to the public as of Jan. 25, 2022, and will be available in paperback, hardcover and eBook formats.