Hillsdale College coaches and athletes know Jodi Martin as an enthusiastic, genuine woman whose Charger pride overflows from the driver’s seat of the Hillsdale buses as she transports teams to away games.
“Jodi stepped up when our other driver had to stop midway through our season,” Women’s Volleyball Team head coach Scott Gravel said. “Wherever she’s called, she goes, that’s what all our drivers do here. Jodi wears her heart on her sleeve and has done a good job for us.”
Martin started driving for women athletic teams in October 2015 and is a bus driver for Hillsdale Academy teams. Immensely proud of the athletes, she cheers in the stands with pompoms and occasionally sports a blue and white Charger horse tattoo on her cheek.
“Jodi was in the stands for GLIAC finals every night. I could recognize her You ladies rock! cheer from the stands as I walked around the pool to my swim heat,” sophomore Theresa Smith said.
Also a swimmer, senior Sarah Rinaldi remembers “One day she wore her crazy pants, saying, ‘These are my good luck ones, you go girls!’”
Growing up in a house formerly across from the Searle Center, Martin described the college campus as her childhood playground. Instead of playing sports as a young girl, Martin owned a horse named Shadow and worked at The Palace Café to earn Shadow’s board at a nearby stable.
After graduating from Hillsdale High School in 1972, Martin worked in food service in the Hillsdale area until she started a ten-year career driving semi-trucks across the nation in 1977.
With Hillsdale as her home base, Martin transitioned to a college employee in 2011 and worked as a security officer until 2012. Following employment at the Indian Trails charter bus service located in Owosso, Michigan, Martin started driving for Hillsdale Academy and College in Fall 2015.
“All the things that I went through, my training with Indian Trails and Hillsdale Academy, they all prepared me to drive Hillsdale College athletes,” Martin said.
Coming off a 1108-mile trip to Florence, South Carolina and back with the softball team, Martin loved gushing about her “ladies” when we spoke.
“I never thought at 61 years old that I would have the opportunity to meet so many young ladies that I adore and respect,” Martin said. “These girls have a work ethic that is impeccable.”
Because she was taught at Indian Trails that customer service is the bus driver’s priority, Martin makes sure her girls are dropped off and picked up at the door and that they know where she’ll cheer in the stands.
“Even as a truck-driving woman, I was trained that the most important thing I can do on the highway is to always be a lady and always ask a lot of questions. That has helped me get a lot of help from men,” Martin said, laughing.
Residing in Hillsdale for her entire life, Martin has witnessed the college’s campus grow up around her.
“I’ve become a wholehearted supporter of the relationship between the college and community,” Martin said.
When her parent’s home was torn down last summer to put in a parking lot across from the Searle Center, the college moved a large rock that held important family memories.The rock was so large that in the process of moving it to the cemetery where Martin’s parents and oldest brother are buried, the forklift was broken.
As she watched the house demolition, Martin salvaged a six-foot tall cross-shaped piece of wood.
“Finding that cross was a God-moment, because now I am working out of an office located in the same place where the house I grew up used to stand,” Martin said.
Martin is honored to be included among the college’s bus drivers and tells the girls she’s their road-trip helicopter mom.
“With my Charger ladies I’m happy, and I’m home,” Martin said.
