Courageous Martino honors mom's memory

Three silver rings that belonged to her mother dangle from a necklace that Kate Martino wears everyday.

Last winter, though, for reasons the well-spoken Wauconda senior can't quite articulate, she felt compelled to do something that she had long talked about but had never acted on. She wanted to further honor her mother.

So in March, without telling her dad, one of the toughest athletes in Lake County endured two hours of pain, which wasn't the worst pain she had ever felt. Claiming she squeezed her brother Andy's hand the whole time, she got a tattoo, discreetly, on her left hip.

The tattoo is of a blue ribbon denoting colon cancer awareness. Wings flank the ribbon with the words, "Stay strong."

They're the last words Kate remembers her mother telling her.

"I've listened," Kate said, smiling but with tears in her eyes. "I've tried."

This fall marks 10 years since Jane Martino succumbed to colon cancer. She was just 45. Kate was just 9.

Few high school athletes have embodied courage more than Martino since she arrived at Wauconda in the fall of 2006. A four-year varsity starter in both basketball and softball whose toughness and ability to dominate games belied her 5-foot-3 frame, the college-bound softball player is the Daily Herald's Lake County female athlete of the year.

"She was the cement that we used to build the foundation of our program," said Wauconda softball coach Tim Rennels, who's seen his program blossom since he plugged in Martino as his everyday shortstop when she was a 15-year-old. Wauconda has 64 wins in the last three years.

"Coming up as a freshman," Rennels said, "she had savvy and grit right from the start."

It wasn't by accident.

Martino, a lifelong resident of Island Lake, grew up playing sports with boys, including Andy, who's four years older than his little sister.

"I couldn't cry in front of (his friends) because then they'd be like, 'She can't play with us now,' and most of them were pretty cute," Martino said, laughing. "So it was like, 'Why would you want to cry?' You had to hold your own. We'd play football, baseball. You'd get beaned with a ball. You had to suck it up."

She boasts that sometimes she would get chosen in pickup games before her brother, but it was because of him that she was so good at sports. To help vent her anger after her mother passed, she played a couple of seasons of organized football, lining up at running back and middle linebacker.

Bill Martino, a car salesman, gets credit for raising a daughter who's grown into an impressive young lady, despite the absence of her mother. Bill remarried in October and Kate is happy for him because it means he won't be alone with her and Andy out of the house.

"I can't believe that he took care of me and Andy," Kate said. "He's great. Me and my dad get into fights all the time, but all the other parents I talk to say, 'He's got to be a great guy to raise two kids (by himself).' "

Like its softball team, Wauconda's girls basketball squad wasn't great before Martino slipped on a varsity jersey. The Bulldogs went from 5 wins to 11 in Martino's freshman season, which she spent running the offense and feeding the ball to then-sophomore star Lauren Mead. Wauconda won 13 games and a regional title the following campaign and posted 21 wins in each of Martino's last two seasons.

This past winter, Martino was the best player on a Bulldogs team that won its first North Suburban Conference Prairie Division championship.

No one was better at swiping the basketball than Martino, who pocketed 128 steals (4.7 per game), while averaging 12.2 points and 4.2 assists. She led Wauconda in all three categories.

"Kate was always an energy boost for our team," coach Jaime Dennis said after Martino's second straight all-area season. "She had the ability to single-handedly change the momentum in a game."

As with basketball, Martino enjoyed her best softball season as a senior. The leadoff batter hit .448 with her 43 hits including 9 doubles and 7 home runs - not bad for her size - with 1 grand slam.

The slam was quite memorable. It came in her final home at-bat, against Huntley.

"We were joking back and forth about bunting," recalled Rennels, aware few players are better at dropping bunts than Martino. "Then I said, 'Go out in style.' She did."

It was near the end of the regular season last year when Wauconda had seven starters suspended, expediting the Bulldogs' exit from the state tournament. The two starters who weren't dismissed - Martino and Cara Nance - decided to bury a time capsule, which included motivational words from the pair, behind home plate on their home field.

Before this year's regional, they unearthed it and shared it with their teammates. The Bulldogs then went out and won the first regional title in the program's history.

That's how you cap a career.

"I still feel like a freshman," Martino said. "I see the girls that were seniors or juniors when I was a freshman and they're like, 'I can't believe you're graduating.' I still feel like a little kid."

This summer the catcher/shortstop is playing her fifth season of travel softball with the McHenry County Heat Wave. In the fall, she'll continue her education and softball career at NAIA Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, where she'll room with fellow incoming freshman and travel teammates Brie Brugioni (Grant), Bailan Reynolds (Antioch) and Maddie McGuire (Marengo).

Nearly a decade since her mother passed, Martino says she still thinks of her every day. She still cries. She got her artistic side from her mother, she believes.

"She was sweet," Martino said, "and so supportive."

Jane Martino's daughter has the same qualities.