Kansas State's Angel Rodriguez says he chose to be a Wildcat largely because of former coach Frank Martin.

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Angel Rodriguez had spent his entire life living in the tropics. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a city on the northern coast of the island. While San Juan is significant historically and economically in the Caribbean, these days most people associate the city with a potential vacation destination. That's what happens when beautiful beaches are combined with an average temperature in the 80's 12 months out of the year.

Think about it like this: Rodriguez was born in a place where he had to travel 1,000 miles northeast just to get to Miami, where he went to high school. Even if you listen to Rick Ross and judge the city based solely on a 30-year-old Al Pacino movie, it's impossible to deny the fact that Miami is one of our nation's premiere party destinations.

Before heading off to college, Rodriguez had spent his youth living where the rest of the country goes on Spring Break. So when the time came for the point guard who had twice been named to the Class 6A All-State First Team and was one of the top five prospects in Florida to decide where he would spend four years as, in all likelihood, a star basketball player, he chose ... Manhattan, Ka. Home of the Kansas State Wildcats.

Manhattan is a city of 52,000 that freezes during the winter, deals with droughts and triple-digit temperatures during the summer, sits smack in the middle of tornado alley and has an airport with flights to and from Chicago and Dallas. Only Chicago and Dallas. What motivated Rodriguez to make that move? To go from southern Florida to northeastern Kansas?

"Everybody knows that the reason I came to K-State was because of Frank," Rodriguez said.

The 'Frank' that he is referring to is Frank Martin, the former head coach at Kansas State. Martin, whose parents immigrated from Cuba before he was born, cut his teeth as a high school coach in Miami and still has strong recruiting ties in an area where his name carries quite a bit of weight and garners even more respect. Rodriguez referred to his relationship with Martin as a 'friendship' on more than one occasion during a phone conversation Tuesday evening. Throw in the fact that Martin had turned another Puerto Rican point guard -- former Wildcat Denis Clemente -- into an all-Big 12 performer during a season that ended with Kansas State in the Elite 8, and Rodriguez's decision to play his college ball in the Little Apple was an easy one to foresee.

What wasn't so easy to foresee, however, was Rodriguez's reaction when Martin left to take over the basketball program at South Carolina. Just four days later, Kansas State filled their head coaching vacancy with Bruce Weber, who had been fired after nine seasons at Illinois less than a month earlier. Rodriguez was at a crossroads: follow his coach -- his friend, his mentor -- to South Carolina, where he would have to sit out a season before being forced to compete with Bruce Ellington for playing time, or stay at Kansas State to play for a different coach but with a roster talented enough to compete for a league title in a wide-open Big 12?

"It was a decision I had to make not only based on me, but with my parents and my people and what they thought was best for me," Rodriguez said. It wasn't a decision he made quickly. Rodriguez met with his new coach and heard him out, giving Weber, who was criticized for his recruiting during his tenure at Illinois, a chance to re-recruit him and convince him to remain at Kansas State. And luckily for Weber, Rodriguez bought into the sales pitch. "He was a great guy and a great coach. Based on that and the fact that I didn't want to sit out, why go transfer ... when I could stay and play right away in the Big 12 as a starter?" he said.

See the original post:
Rob Dauster: Despite K-State coaching swap, Angel Rodriguez still looks to break out