Fraternity holds ‘Men of Principle’ award ceremony
As members of Beta Theta Pi fraternity gathered to hear about leadership Monday evening, head basketball coach Frank Martin offered them some of his insights.
His guiding force? The people who have been there for him — his mom, his wife and his high school basketball coach. They’ve helped make him the leader he is today, Martin said.
That, he said, and “my size 13 shoe.”
Martin’s well-known for his loud, intense coaching style, and hints of it were on display Monday, as he talked about dealing with adversity.
“A man is a person who can pull up his boots and do his work every day,” Martin said, before asking how attendees would wrestle with failure: “Are you going to stand up and deal with failure and deal with an adverse moment? Or are you going to roll over and bawl?”
Still, he said, persistence and dedication are most important for him when it comes to his family — he can’t take a day off from making his kids breakfast or taking them to school.
And, he told the fraternity, the most important tool he has in leading is promoting love for one another and recognizing that everyone has to coexist with each other.
It was a fitting sentiment for the banquet that awarded the third annual “Men of Principle” scholarships, which the chapter awards to non-Greek USC students.
This year, backed by alumni donations, they handed out two $500 awards, instead of one, said Karl Ewald, the scholarship chair. They went to Luigi Cesaratto, a first-year international business student, and Jonathan Gates, a second-year mechanical engineering student.
Cesaratto said he’s not quite sure yet what he’d like to do in the future, though he hopes to pursue a career in international business, and Gates said he’s mapped out a more clear path: He’d like to work in research and development for a luxury car manufacturer, he said.