Shane Purcell is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student who covers Desert Heights for AZPreps365.com.

It is the season-opening football game for the Desert Heights Prep Coyotes. Athletic director Courtney Martin watches from the grass sideline as if she is one of the fans. She breaks from a news interview to embrace four former students who address her by her first name and share their recent endeavors.

To many, the high school athletic director is just a name or face seen at sporting events and working behind the scenes. At Desert Heights, she is the embodiment of its culture; a close, caring community.

Martin is a former collegiate athlete who has worked at Desert Heights for eight years as a counselor, AD and volleyball coach. Her assistant, Michelle Robles, remembers well the contrast between her own high school experience and that of Desert Heights. “When I went to high school, I honestly don’t remember having any kind of contact with our athletic director,” she said.

Robles praised how Martin has developed the program in Glendale, “really building a community amongst the students, the staff, the parents, all of the stakeholders at Desert Heights.”

The intimacy at Desert Heights was not entirely by Martin’s design, however. The school is unique in its population, having students from kindergarten through the 12th grade share two campuses. The high school graduating classes are growing, but still very small.

“We’re still at that 50-60 mark as it continues each year,” Martin said.

Martin said her relationships with students at such a small school were inevitable, but students still recognize her commitment. 

“She invests so much of her time, not only into the volleyball program, but also into the student body,'' senior volleyball player Kayla Johnson wrote in an interview over email. "She is a dedicated and passionate person who really cares about the well-being of all students.”

Playing volleyball under Martin, Johnson sees another side as well.

 “She is fiercely competitive,” Johnson said, adding that Martin “constantly challenges us to play at our highest potential.”

For Martin, becoming the AD allowed her to bring her competitive spirit to the program.

“I grew up in athletics in the 90s,” she said, “in the old-school mentality of ‘you don’t win a participation trophy, you earn it.’”

Working at a college preparatory academy, Martin embraces challenging her athletes to prepare for the next level.

“Kids will want to go to college, so why wouldn’t we align athletics the same way we align their academics?” she said.

Her hard-nosed approach not only builds character and connects with players, it pays dividends for all students.

 “We actually do have a higher percentage of students going on and playing in college … and also kids graduating and going onto the college or university of their choice,” Martin said.

Desert Heights students continue to benefit from the community that Martin has helped build. Alumni return to give students advice and share post-graduation experience, and Martin uses her position to teach students beyond the world of athletics.

“In volleyball and life, my team and I learned that there’s no such thing as failure, only opportunity and to hold ourselves accountable,'' Johnson said.