History major and walk-on Tristan Martinez ’26 digs into the history of Clemson Football
Tristan Martinez arrived at Clemson University all the way from Honolulu. Growing up in Hawaii, he enjoyed reading- and writing-based subjects, and he always had a specific fondness for history.
“I did academic competitions, like the National History Bee and Bowl, which was a national tournament in Washington, D.C., they put on for high school students,” he said. “I also did a couple of mock trials in high school, and I got a good rush out of it.” Those experiences convinced him to pursue law, where he could put the skills he’d honed early on to use every day.
But Martinez’s road to Clemson came through another passion of his: football. Over the summer in high school, he traveled across the mainland to attend Clemson Football camps. When the time came to decide on a college and Clemson offered him a walk-on position on the football team, he seized the opportunity. And last August, Martinez earned a full scholarship for his contributions to the team.
“When I was a kid, I dreamed of playing football for Clemson,” he said, “and to see that come to fruition was really rewarding.”
Martinez found his athletic and academic worlds overlapping at Clemson in ways he hadn’t expected. Paul Anderson, a former history professor turned football program administrator, encouraged Tristan to study history.
“I want kids back home to see someone who looks like them in the positions they aspire to, whether it’s in college athletics or in the legal field.”
Tristan Martinez ’26
“When I was in high school, I told him my goal was to end up in law school, and he suggested that the history department would be really good for that,” Martinez said.
Then, during his junior year, Martinez took a Historian’s Craft class that taught him to utilize Clemson’s Special Collections and Archives, which holds the University Archives. He pursued research by tracing the origins of college football at Clemson.
“I found some really interesting material about the Clemson Football team and how it got started,” he said. “It tied in with Clemson’s identity as a military school, and (Walter Riggs) saw it as another way to make his cadets tougher and better prepare them for war.
“I thought, ‘Wow, that’s interesting.’ Getting to conduct research that way was really cool.”
In the future, Martinez hopes that his dedication to his studies and sport will inspire others to pursue their own passions. “I want kids back home to see someone who looks like them in the positions they aspire to,” he said, “whether it’s in college athletics or in the legal field.”
