At age 77, Roland Martin is still competing at a high level in Costa FLW Series events and maintains a
busy schedule of filming and promotional appearances.
JANUARY 2018 I FLWFISHING.COM
Lake (for which he qualified through the
Southeastern Division) last November,
Martin couldn’t scratch out a check, but he
made a respectable showing.
After the Costa event’s Friday
evening weigh-in, after fishing for six
days in practice and competition,
Martin towed his boat to Old Hickory
Lake near Nashville, where he and bud-
dies Bill Dance and Jimmy Houston par-
ticipated in a one-day tournament to
raise funds for their Th3 Legends “Cast
for a Cure” cancer research charity.
Hard work, but Martin still loves it,
and it’s all in a typical week’s routine. He
continues to film his popular TV pro-
gram, in which he reacts to every big
fish that he hooks as if it is the best one
ever. Nowadays, too, he’s involved with
Dance and Houston in Th3 Legends, a
promotional triumvirate that keeps
them front and center in the fishing
world. It’s entertaining to see and listen
to the three together: Dance the wise-
cracker who’s never at a loss for words,
Houston the clever-tongued jester and
Roland, who usually is the foil for his
two cohorts.
“Roland is one of the most guileless
people ever,” says Dance of his long-
time friend. “He is what you see on TV,
and he hasn’t changed a bit over the
years. One thing I have always admired
about Roland Martin is that he will not
tell you an outright lie. He might be able
to dodge telling you the truth, or avoid
answering you, but if you just go up to
him, look him in the eye and ask him a
flat-out-yes-or-no question, he will tell
you the truth. That’s pretty uncommon
in a fisherman.”
Dance is a practical joker of the first
order, but early on he lost his ardor to
pick on Roland; too easy a target, too
much like giving a wedgie to an Eagle
Scout. Even so, each man gets in his ver-
bal licks when he can, though Martin is
much more used to being on the receiv-
ing end. He delivered one of his best
shots at Dance in 1980, when the latter
announced that he was leaving the tour-
nament scene to pursue his television
career. At a tournament press confer-
ence, when asked for his reaction to
Dance’s retirement announcement,
Martin deadpanned that “sooner or later
age catches up with everybody, and a
man has to know his limitations. I guess
Bill knew it was time to call it quits.”
That was 38 years ago, and though
they’re each 77 years old now, neither
man is ready to call it quits.
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