{"id":11054,"date":"2015-06-17T19:01:46","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T23:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=11054"},"modified":"2015-07-15T22:17:00","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T02:17:00","slug":"pan-am-gold-medalist-joins-diggers-coaching-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/pan-am-gold-medalist-joins-diggers-coaching-squad\/","title":{"rendered":"Pan Am gold medalist joins Diggers coaching squad"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aurora\u2019s Todd Martin has a good feeling about Canada\u2019s chances at softball gold in next month\u2019s Pan Am Games.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s already got his tickets and his predictions \u2013 including a bold prediction of Canada\u2019s women\u2019s team taking home their first Pan Am gold medal.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a tough task, but they\u2019ve been getting closer and closer to the U.S. for years,\u201d Martin tells The Auroran. \u201cThey\u2019ve got the pitching now\u2026I think it\u2019s finally their year.\u201d<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, Martin has also chosen the men to win gold over Argentina in the return of men\u2019s softball for the first time since 2003. Canada is 7 \u2013 0 in the tournament\u2019s medal history, defeating the United States all seven times in the final.<\/p>\n

The ex-pro is certainly entitled to his opinions, having won gold with the men\u2019s squad in the 1999 Games, in front of a national home crowd in Winnipeg. He\u2019s also got a number of other accolades to his career, including six ISC World Championships, a nine-time ISC World All-Star, and named the ISC World\u2019s Most Valuable Pitcher three times.<\/p>\n

Following his playing career, he made a move to coaching, working with pitchers at levels both collegiate and professional. His proudest pupil happens to be Jenna Caira, co-captain of the Canadian National Softball team, who joined the Aurora Diggers for a clinic last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s probably the most talented that I\u2019ve worked with, and I\u2019m pretty excited to see what she can do on the mound in a couple weeks when the Games start.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also worked with a handful of other players on the women\u2019s team, and played with a few guys still on the men\u2019s roster. But recently, he\u2019s taken up a position with the Diggers that brings him back to the very basics.<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s daughter followed in his footsteps three years ago, the youngest squad he\u2019s ever coached in pitching. He is now a director on the board of the Diggers, as well as the proud head coach of the 10-and-under Mite team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s neat to be coaching a squad that\u2019s just getting their feet wet,\u201d said Martin, who calls it a \u201cprivilege\u201d to be given the chance to get kids started into the game. \u201cHopefully someday these kids can experience what I experienced at an international level at the Pan Am Games.\u201d<\/p>\n

He remembers his 1999 gold medal win vividly \u2013 a packed house at John Blumberg Softball Complex, cheering on Martin and his team en-route to a victory over the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada really got behind us,\u201d recalls Martin. \u201cWe had wall-to-wall coverage, all the playoff games were on live\u2026standing on the podium afterwards singing \u2018O Canada\u2019 in front of 4,500 people was pretty awesome. I\u2019ll never forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 2015 Games will host softball at the President\u2019s Choice Pan Am Ballpark in Ajax. Tickets are still available at www.toronto2015.org\/tickets.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora\u2019s Todd Martin has a good feeling about Canada\u2019s chances at softball gold in next month\u2019s Pan Am Games.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s already got his tickets and his predictions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/2015-06-18-08.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2Si","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-18 09:44:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}