I have been the teammate of Erik Martin almost every year since we were twelve. Through the years, from Little League All-Stars to the Varsity baseball team, he has never seemed to change as a person.

He never demanded recognition for his outstanding play, never got on teammates for their shortcomings and was never slow to become friends with everyone on the team. This makes sense to anyone who has met Erik outside of baseball; he is lighthearted and easygoing to everyone he meets.

What many do not know about Erik Martin is his relationship with the outdoors. On X, Erik reached the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America when he became an Eagle Scout. He comes from a line of scouts with his father being a troop leader and his brothers also being Eagle Scouts.

“I started doing scouting activities before I was even a Cub Scout because my older brothers were scouts and I would go camping with them and do activities at the meetings with them,” Erik says. “So when I started Cub Scouts I had a head start on the other kids in my den.”

Through being a Boy Scout he also got his summer job for the past three years at Goshen Scout Reservation working at Camp PMI. There he teaches archery to nine and ten-year-old Webelo Scouts while living in a tent for the two months. Fully immersed in the forest, he has had countless encounters with wild animals.

“I have run into deer, skunks, timber rattlesnakes, and copperheads.” He also casually adds “there are like two bears each summer that just keep coming back.”

Most people would find an encounter like this terrifying if not a near-death experience, but Erik “was already used to bears. They are just another animal.”

During the school year, Erik takes an advanced animal science class at the Arlington Career Center. There he learns how to take care of animals and potential career paths involving animals. While most of us spend our early weekday mornings dancing the fine line between consciousness and unconsciousness, he is taking care of… *INHALE*

• Snakes
• Mice
• Rats
• Goats
• Dogs
• A cat
• A mini horse (LIL SEBASTIAN)
• Turtles
• Tortoises
• Gerbils
• A guinea
• A pig
• Skinks (I didn’t know what those even were)
• Birds
• Geckos
• A tarantula
• Ferrets
• Fish

Erik’s a quiet guy and it takes a while to get to know him, but if you ever run into a bear in the wild, you’ll be glad you know him.