New Jersey Institute of Technology Athletics

JR Martins (mar-TEENS) assumed leadership of the women’s volleyball program in 2009 after three seasons as the top assistant for NJIT’s women’s volleyball and men’s volleyball teams.
 
His first season at the helm saw the program continue to grow as it became a full member of NCAA Division I for the first time. The 2009 Highlanders finished with a 17-11 overall record and achieved national recognition when they led Division I in team digs per set (19.80) and Sabrina Baby, the senior libero, was the national individual leader in digs per set (6.27).
 
The 17-11 record that included a 7-5 mark in the first year of Great West Conference play came on the heels of an 18-16 record as an independent in 2008.
 
That most successful Division I team has heavy graduation losses, leading to a rebuilding project that has seen the program’s wins total increase each year from 2010 to 2011 to 2012’s 12 wins.
 
Martins’ appointment as women’s volleyball head coach was part of a reorganization of the coaching structure for NJIT’s two volleyball teams. Ryan McNeil, who had been head coach of both teams, stepped down from coaching women’s volleyball to focus on his duties as men’s volleyball head coach.
 
Martins (whose initials, ‘JR’, stand for Jose Reynaldo) is a native of Brazil who was a four-year college player at Lewis (IL) University, graduating in 2004. He was a captain and starter on the Lewis team that won the 2003 NCAA national championship match (later vacated). A four-year dean’s list student at Lewis, he was a 2004 Academic All-America.
 
With NJIT women’s volleyball, he helped a successful transition to Division I from Division II, as the Highlanders improved their wins total from 10 in 2006, to 13 in 2007 and then to 18 in 2008, for the program’s highest wins total since 1990, when it won 23 matches at the Division III level.
 
Assisting McNeil on the men’s side, Martins helped NJIT to the 2007 Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association Hay Division regular season championship and to a berth in the 2008 EIVA playoff semifinals.
 
Martins is also a graduate of Pontific Catholic University of Campinas in his home country. A veteran of the Brazilian army, he has coached collegiate volleyball in Brazil and then club volleyball in the Midwestern United States, before returning to Brazil, where he played and coached club ball.

He resides in Newark.