Wayne Martin traced his life at Morehead State to an eighth-grade visit to Wetherby Gym, where the noise and energy fixed his ambition on becoming an Eagle. Martin, the championship basketball coach who later led Kentucky television stations and returned to the university as a regent, died on August 29, 2026, at 79.

That early decision held. Martin graduated from Clark County High School in Winchester in 1964, then competed in golf and earned a basketball letter at Morehead State. He completed his bachelor's degree in 1968 and returned for a master's degree in 1972. In a Morehead State Athletics profile, he remembered basketball beginning in his own backyard, where his father put up a hoop when he was four. The game led him outward, but Morehead kept pulling him back.

Martin began professionally as a business teacher and head coach at Pikeville High School. His route back to Morehead included work as an assistant at Oral Roberts and as head coach and athletic director at Pikeville College, where his teams reached three national tournaments. On March 14, 1978, Morehead State announced that he would become the ninth head coach of its men's basketball program. "Coming back to Morehead State as a coach was a dream come true for me, and I was fortunate enough to live that dream for nine years," he later said.

The nine seasons produced 130 victories and the stretch that defined his work on the sideline. Morehead State won consecutive Ohio Valley Conference championships in 1983 and 1984, reaching the NCAA tournament in both seasons. Martin was OVC Coach of the Year in 1981-82 and again in 1983-84. His 1983-84 team went 25-6, and on March 13, 1984, the Eagles edged North Carolina A&T 70-69 in an NCAA opening-round game in Dayton.

Those results rested on players he recruited and developed. Martin coached three future NBA draft selections, 12 All-OVC honorees, and seven members of Morehead State's 1,000-point club. Bob McCann, who became the conference player of the year in Martin's final season, was among the NBA draftees. The university placed Martin in its Athletics Hall of Fame in 1995, and the Ohio Valley Conference followed with its own Hall of Fame induction in 2004.

After leaving the Morehead bench in 1987, Martin made a rare second career in television management. His path ran through WYMT in Hazard, where he led sales and then the station. In 1993 he moved to WKYT in Lexington and became its president and general manager. He later served as a Gray Television regional vice president, led Gray Kentucky Television, and held the presidency of WVLT in Knoxville. The work put him in charge of stations serving communities across Kentucky and Tennessee.

When Martin announced his retirement in 2012, Gray chief operating officer Bob Prather told Broadcasting & Cable that Martin had led WKYT through "a period of tremendous growth." Prather also credited him with making the station part of the fabric of the Lexington market. Martin's own farewell counted 20 years in education and 25 in broadcasting, two chapters connected by the same habit of building institutions around people.

The relationships lasted beyond job titles. After Martin's death, WKYT chief meteorologist Chris Bailey said, "Wayne hired me at WKYT nearly 30 years ago and he was a mentor and friend well after he retired." Former Kentucky coach John Calipari recalled working with Martin on charity telethons that raised millions of dollars. WKYT also documented Martin's service as chair of the Kentucky and Greater Lexington chambers of commerce, a United Way campaign, and the Governor's Scholars Foundation.

Morehead State remained the constant through both careers. Martin served on its Board of Regents across appointments beginning in 1989, including four years as vice chair from 2016 to 2020. A 2021 reappointment was scheduled to carry his service through 2027. In that role he moved from coaching one university team to helping govern the institution that surrounded it.

The university answered that service with honors. Its College of Business and Technology named Martin a Distinguished Alumnus in 2017, and the Board of Regents gave him the Founders Award for University Service in 2025. In the university's tribute carried by Morehead State Public Radio, President Jay Morgan said Martin "truly embodied what it means to be an Eagle."

The recognition became physical in 2026, when Morehead State broke ground on Martin Hall. Planned to house about 80 students, the residence hall was scheduled to open in spring 2027. A scholarship endowment carrying his name had also attracted more than $100,000 in support. The two projects joined the oldest and newest parts of his connection to the school: a place for students to live and money to help them study and compete.

Martin was survived by his wife, Kathy, and sons Matthew and Michael; his son Chris died before him. Matthew continued the family's Morehead athletics connection as the Eagles' head men's golf coach, a role he had held since the 2014-15 season.

Martin's work persists in the 1983 and 1984 championship banners, the players he sent into record books and the NBA draft, the broadcasters he hired, and the university decisions he helped make. Martin Hall and the scholarship bearing his name were designed to give future Eagles a room, a campus foothold, and the kind of opportunity around which he organized six decades of service.