NEW ORLEANS — Nearly 12 years after Xavier University of Louisiana opened its Convocation Center, Alvin Martin got his first look at a large wall image, part of a historical sports collage above the lobby's trophy cases.
        The image is of Martin, in uniform for the Gold Rush baseball team during the 1950s.
        Friday was Martin's 90th birthday.
        "I had heard about this (image)," Martin said. "I'm so glad to be able to finally see this."
        Martin's sons Wilbert and Peter teamed with XULA employee and family friend Terisita Schnyder to bring Martin from his home in suburban Marrero, La., to campus. Additional family members attended the informal look-see, and Martin met first-year XULA baseball head coach Dave Yamane and some of the current Gold Rush players. Yamane gave him a jersey and a cap.
        Martin graduated from XULA in 1957 and was a two-sport starter for the Gold Rush — as a right-handed pitcher and a football halfback. Some of his best sports moments occurred against Southern. Martin earned a pair of pitching victories against the Jaguars in 1955, the first at Southern with a nine-inning complete game and a single during a four-run seventh that put the Gold Rush ahead to stay. And as a senior in 1956 his conversion run scored the decisive point in the Gold Rush's final football victory against the Jaguars, 14-13 at Southern. (U.S. college football instituted two-point conversions in 1958. XULA discontinued football after the 1959 season.)
        Martin did not play professional sports, although XULA alum Jim Hall's Louisiana Weekly newspaper column of June 9, 1956, said the St. Louis Cardinals scouted Martin and baseball teammate James Clarkson. Martin was a longtime industrial arts teacher at Lincoln and West Jefferson high schools, then transitioned into administration for Jefferson Parish Schools.
        Martin's wife, the former Ethel Bluain, was a 1956 XULA graduate. They married in 1961 and raised three sons and a daughter.
        There's a current XULA connection: Gabrielle Morrison, a third-year women's basketball guard, is a great niece of Martin.
        The birthday celebration was scheduled to continue Friday evening at Martin's home with rotisserie chicken, sweet potatoes, green beans and strawberry cake.
        "This is a special day for me," Martin said.