# National Hispanic Heritage Month Spotlight: Santiago L. Martínez-Rivera

/ Published Sept. 16, 2022
COLUMBUS, Ohio, 
Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime’s Hispanic Employment Program joined in the celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month by recognizing the contributions of DLA Pathways to Career Excellence contract specialist and Central Ohio Men’s Adult Baseball All-Star Santiago Luis Martínez-Rivera. 

Martínez-Rivera was born in Puerto Rico and moved to Ohio when he was 5 years old. He graduated from Gahanna Lincoln High School, where he played on the junior varsity and varsity baseball teams. Martínez-Rivera earned a bachelor’s degree in Sports and Business Management from the University of Rio Grande in Ohio and was part of its baseball team playing all outfield positions before joining DLA Land and Maritime’s PaCE Program. The two-year training program is a corporate internship designed to train entry-level personnel for subsequent advancement in professional, administrative and technological career fields through on-the-job training, cross-training, rotational assignments and formal training.

Martínez-Rivera’s connection to DLA Land and Maritime is also a personal one. He’s the son of Supply Systems Analyst and former Hispanic Employment Month Coordinator Maramcel Rivera. Maramcel currently serves as Vice President of Education for the AGOISSI Toastmasters Club.  

“My son always loved sports,” Maramcel said. “To help pay for his college education, he decided to try out for the university’s baseball team and play at the next level.” 

Maramcel credited her son with having the drive to succeed as a student athlete both in high school and during his college years at the University of Rio Grande.

“It’s not a field easy to get a spot on – as a minority you need to work harder to earn a spot and have visibility,” she said. “When you’re a student athlete, you must manage your time well and have discipline to meet all the requirements for the team such as practice, away games, working in the department and meeting all the deadlines for classes to keep a GPA to participate in the program. In addition, being able to work under stress. Even though those were difficult times, it prepared my son for the future.”

As a Latino, Martínez-Rivera said he encountered many obstacles while playing college baseball but he had the support of his teammates. 

 “Challenges that I faced were dealing with being the only Spanish-speaker/Latino on the team,” he explained. “My early days of college were a lot easier in dealing with that because I had roomed and been teammates with many Puerto Rican and Dominican players. As the years went by, they all graduated, and during my senior year, I was the only one of Hispanic heritage on the team. Even though I was from a different culture, my teammates from the southern part of Ohio accepted me.”

In 2019, the University of Rio Grande baseball team won the River States Conference championship. RSC is a collegiate conference with membership in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.

“Celebrating the championship with my fellow teammates, who were like my brothers, was an amazing experience,” he said. “Going through training, practices, games, and going through many obstacles during the season and all year, got us a strong team to win the championship and we deserved that title.  It was one of the greatest achievements and times that I will always remember.”

During his senior year of college, Martínez-Rivera made the Merit roll and Dean’s list and was nominated by his peers for the Champion of Character Award. 

The award recognizes a team member who best exhibits the five core values of the NAIA and the University of Rio Grande, which are: respect, responsibility, integrity, servant leadership and sportsmanship in both the athletic field and the classroom.   

Martínez-Rivera said he felt honored when he received it, adding “I felt like my teammates thought I deserved the award after participating in the work study program for the athletic department, being an athlete, and most importantly being a good student.” 

Once he graduated college, Martínez-Rivera joined the Central Ohio Men’s Adult Baseball League where he was selected to play in the 2021 All-Star game at Huntington Park.

To be part of the game, he said several factors were taken into consideration such as putting up the numbers to be able to participate, being a good teammate and a great leader.

“Not only performing to lead the team to win, but also showing sportsmanship,” he added.

COMABL was established in 1995 as an 18 and over division of the National Men’s Senior Baseball League which oversees all sanctioned amateur men’s baseball leagues in the United States.  COMABL has 14 teams that play a 21-game regular season on Sundays running from May through August.  Playoffs start before Labor Day to produce a league champion in mid-September. In addition to the COMABL League Championship, MSBL hosts tournaments in October. 

Martínez-Rivera offered advice for the younger generation who aspires to be a professional athlete, pursue a business management career or even those just looking to make a positive impact in the community.

“Working hard and training hard is essential but believing in yourself is probably the most important thing you can do for yourself because at the end of the day if you don’t believe in what you’re doing, all your hard work is going to waste,” he said. “This is something I wish I would have learned earlier in my life. No matter the adversities you face you need to keep moving forward and be resilient.”

Regarding her son’s achievements, Maramcel said, “I’m honored and very proud of all the accomplishments he has achieved so far. He worked very hard and maintained a discipline that at the end paid off. Even though he faced some challenges since his school years, he never gave up. He wanted to be better every day and worked hard to get to the next level.”