Avarie Martin, a sophomore basketball player, was enjoying a group visit at Campbell University with her dad. They watched Campbell’s football game after being given the opportunity to watch their basketball team’s practice. During the football game, some of the recruiters found Martin and her dad and brought them into head coach Ronny Fisher’s office. Fisher told Martin that she had great potential and that they wanted to be the first to give her an offer to play basketball for Campbell University, offering her a full-ride scholarship. Martin was in shock but full of joy and thankfulness.

Martin was a starter and her team’s top scorer throughout middle school at North Davie and has been a starter on women’s varsity for the past two years of high school. She started playing basketball in elementary school but she didn’t start playing with a passion and goals until middle school. Having played the sport in some form since elementary school, Martin has always had some natural talent when it comes to basketball, but since high school she has started to improve and catch the attention of a number of colleges. As of the start of her sophomore season, she has received three offers to play at the next level from Campbell, Appalachian, and Elon University. Even though she has always dreamed about playing college basketball at NC State University, Martin was still overfilled with joy when she received her college offers.

“I wasn’t expecting it really, but I was just really filled with joy and excitement, and I was blessed that they saw something in me and my potential,” Martin says.

Outside her work during the regular season, Martin attends countless off-season workouts and plays travel basketball for Kids Matter Always with Lindsey Adams, Davie’s women’s basketball coach. Some of her Davie teammates also join her during the travel ball season, developing a number of close friendships along the way.

Madison Daugherty is one of Martin’s teammates, and they have been playing together since freshman year and have developed a good friendship. Daugherty explains that Martin shows good leadership when things are going wrong and her teammates need her. She goes out on the court and takes things into her own hands. Daugherty likes playing with Martin and says that she is a good player.

“I think we just talked to each other, high fives, just words of encouragement and affirmation, and just telling each other that we’re good, and we got it,” Daugherty says.

Finding Aggression

Despite having the respect of her teammates and coaches, Martin is not a particularly vocal person according to Adams. Even when she tries to encourage and support her teammates, they are the ones constantly picking her up and giving her words of encouragement. Adams believes that getting these college offers so early is putting pressure on Martin, a 15-year-old girl, and she is trying to balance the pressure while still being there scoring for her team because she knows that they need her to put numbers on the board.

“So when she’s not doing good, she takes it personal,” Adams says. “Not because she cares about her personal stats, but because she knows it’s what our team needs to win, and she always feels like she’s letting them down.”

On the court, Martin shows a passion to fight to win every game, but off the court, she is a different person altogether. Adams explains that because Martin is such a “nice” person it is hard for her to be so aggressive to the other team and take all the shots because she also wants to give her teammates the chance to score. While she is still in high school, she works harder to become more of an aggressive player on the court because colleges want to see her take over more. Colleges demanding more of this aggression on the court, though, creates a challenge for Martin who worries at times that her teammates will think that she is selfish when she is taking all the shots. Adams, however, does not view Martin this way. In reality, that willingness to make plays and take shots is what her teammates need. Adams says that just because Martin is taking all those shots for her team, it doesn’t make her a selfish person.

“So we’re trying to get her to take more initiative on the court,” Adams says. “Just because off the court, she’s just a very passive person, just super nice. And so we’re trying to change how she is on the court with off the court.”

Martin has shown great improvement over the last six months and has made a big leap from who she was as a basketball player six months ago to now. She transformed from being a post player to a shooting guard, which has been a great advantage to the team since most high school girls struggle to guard a six-foot-tall shooter.

Adams believes that if Martin continues to put in the work to improve her skills for the next three years, she could have a great college basketball career. The D1 college offers she’s already receiving as a sophomore would be nothing compared to what she could receive by her junior and senior years.

“Avarie has a big future if she keeps working,” Adams says. “Like she has God-given talent that a lot of girls just don’t have.”

Martin explains that it is hard to balance school, basketball, and personal life. She considers herself a person who goes with the flow, but when it comes to Martin’s free time and personal plans, she has to work around basketball in everything she does. Even though working hard at basketball takes up a lot of her time, Martin thinks that it is all worth it.

“You have to work even when you’re tired because once the results show, it’s the best feeling ever.”

This story was originally published on The Weekly Talon on January 24, 2025.