Last month, the world lost a dedicated and passionate servant of the game and a true friend to the families of South Seattle's youth community. SYSA Recreational Coach Jose Martinez left this world November 6th 2022 after succumbing to a brief bout with cancer. He was a distinguished coach and board member with Beacon Hill Youth Soccer where he managed his Latino community youth soccer program called Tecos. In 2018, he was honored as SYSA Girl’s Coach of the Year.

Photo courtesy of Beacon Hill Youth Soccer

Jose coached youth soccer in Seattle for decades. His wife Evonne tells us “Jose was an athlete most of his life and a dedicated coach throughout his life. As his children grew old enough to play sports, he coached each one of them in a variety of sports depending on the season; baseball, softball, basketball, wrestling. In later years, he dedicated his life to coaching youth soccer. He coached at the premier, middle school, and high school levels and was a Nationally licensed soccer coach with additional advanced training. Although he could have continued to coach for premier teams or charged significantly for his training services, his focus was in providing high level training opportunities to youth and families that would not have been able to afford it otherwise, especially within the Latino and immigrant community."

"Jose loved to work with young people who were not given the same opportunities by other coaches because of their lack of skill or because of limited abilities that made it challenging for them to make progress in a linear fashion. His patience and great respect for each player and his focus on skill development and not on his teams’ winning was what eventually led to his players becoming very skilled and he often had championship level teams as a result. In addition to teaching his players soccer skills, he also stressed the importance of always doing their best in whatever they attempted, including academics and maintaining their familial relationships. He was not just a coach - he was a mentor, a confidant, an advocate, and his teams became more like extensions of families that he led as their respected elder.” (Evonne Martinez)

Jose and his Tecos club enhanced SYSA diversity while providing an invaluable service to the families of Seattle’s south end community. Many of Jose's families were challenged with multiple barriers including language, poverty, access to technology and transportation, as well as racial discrimination encountered on the pitch. Yet Jose always kept pushing forward, encouraging and believing in his players and teaching them the importance of character, respect and community regardless of what others around them were doing. Jose will forever be remembered for giving the Latino community opportunities for youth development and for expanding the reach of BHYS and SYSA, all contributing to enriching the Seattle soccer community as a whole. (Larry McCann, BHYS Registrar)

Carlos Enriquez is a former player and friend of Jose, and has many fond memories of running into Jose around town during his community outreach work with Seattle United. Here's a story of a recent time when Carlos's outreach work crossed paths with Jose's Tecos team:

"A few years ago, the Mexico National team was in Seattle during the summer for a friendly against Paraguay. I was put in charge of finding 60+ Latino youth from the area to help with the pregame ceremony. They helped carry the flags, line up with players, and a few other tasks. I reached out to several youth leaders that had predominantly Latino youth on their teams to be a part of this event, Coach Jose and his Tecos was one of them. On game day, the Tecos were the first to arrive ready to roll. We were in the stadium with all the kids in one big room for hours waiting to hear about our tasks. As you can imagine, that was a very complicated couple of hours with 60 or so youngsters in one room doing what youth are not engineered to do…..sit and wait.

Some rowdy spirits arose as one would imagine in that situation, but we made it. A thing that stood out to me was how well behaved, polite, and kind the Tecos kids were. I personally floated between all the groups to try and keep the kids entertained, so I know first hand the differences in how the kids acted in such a challenging situation. The organizer that I worked with also went out of her way to point it out to me. I’ll never forget this moment, I think it truly captured what coach Jose did on the field.

He taught far more than soccer to the kids. He taught them to be great young athletes AND how to be kind and respectful people. As my teammates and I reflected on how he treated us while we played for him, the things that came forth was: respect, encouragement, and belief…….all delivered with that brilliant Jose Martinez humor.

He will be missed tremendously and his leadership in the community will be very hard to replicate. I know the community will work hard to make sure his legacy lives on." (Carlos Enriquez, Seattle United Community Outreach Director)

As we close out this tribute, we here at SYSA would like to say thank you Coach Jose. Thank you for your years of dedication and love to both the game and to the hundreds of young lives that you have touched and positively impacted. You will be missed.

"In the end, lo and behold, it’s not really about sports at all. What matters most for youngsters is learning about themselves, and learning how to get along.
For the vast majority of kids, the games themselves will fade over the years. What will remain are the friendships and life lessons from the 21st-century village that sports can provide and that kids so desperately need outside of the structure of the classroom."

- Larry Stone, Seattle Times Reporter from Lessons Learned July 2018