Martravious Little reviving Northeast hoops

In a sparsely-decorated office tucked away in a narrow hallway behind the gym at Northeast High School, boys basketball coach Martravious Little slipped into his black plaid sport coat, which fit neatly over a black dress shirt and a peach-colored pattern tie.

“Gotta add a splash of color,” Little said as he straightened his tie in preparation for a photo.

His outfit was only half complete. Below the dapper attire, Little wore a pair of track pants and some Nikes. He chuckled at the mismatched outfit.

The head coach’s top half, the fancy half, was much closer to his normal garb. Little enjoys putting together polished ensembles for Northeast gamedays, and the all-black look — incomplete at about noon that Friday, but soon to be properly paired with black dress pants for that evening’s game — is one he reserves for the especially crucial matchups.

“I learned that from (former Wilkinson County head coach) Dr. Aaron Geter,” Little said of his all-black attire. “He always wore black for the big games.”

Little dressed in black for Northeast’s game against Putnam County, the No. 1 team in the state in Class A-Division I. If the matchup had been played a year ago, the Raiders may not have fared well. They went 2-22 last season.

Under Little’s leadership in his first year as head coach, Northeast already has three wins this season through five games. They were only down four points against Putnam in the fourth quarter, an impressive showing against a top team.

This team has come a long way. So has Martravious Little.

He’s always been the smallest guy on the court since he began playing basketball. A leg injury derailed his playing career in 2018. His mother, one of his biggest inspirations, passed away earlier this year after a long battle with breast cancer.

Now Little has returned to Macon. His family members — the people he is closest to in the world, the people he says are constantly supporting him but also checking him when he stumbles — have deep roots at Northeast. When he saw the job opening, the Middle Georgia native’s eyes widened.

With Little at the helm, the Northeast program could be on the rise.

Family ties

Dressing out for key games wasn’t the only thing Little learned from his former head coach at Wilkinson County. After all, he was on two teams that won the state championship in 2013 and 2014.

Much more important was the demeanor and attitude Little took from Geter. The local legend’s stature left an imprint on Little, even though it would be a few years before he became a coach.

“He’s where I get my tenacity as a coach from,” Little said. “If you’re from around here, you know Coach Geter could get in your face. … He even came to a game. He said, ‘Boy, you look like me walking up and down that sideline.’”

Little also learned a lot from Macon’s east side growing up. His father and many aunts and uncles attended Northeast and talked about the school’s proud athletic history. 

His family still talks a lot in general, actually, in their group chat. Little says they are very close.

“With my family, we love and support each other but we also check each other when we make a mistake,” he said. “My family will tell you, ‘you messed up.’

“When this job opened, I sent it in that group chat and said, ‘I gotta get in this. I gotta find a way to get in on this.’”

At the time, Little was the girls basketball coach at Midtown High School in Atlanta. The Knights went 22-9, 27-6 and 24-5 in his three seasons there. They reached the state championship game in his second year, losing to Jackson-Atlanta in the Class 5A state title.

That position, in which Little proved he was a winner, came after a stint as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Morehouse.

It was an experience was brought on not by choice, but by happenstance.

“I tore my leg up with only five games left my senior year,” Little said of his final season at Morehouse. “So my coach said, ‘While you rehab, do you want to join my staff and become a coach?’ I jumped at that.”

Little’s original player profile is still on Morehouse’s athletics website. The page says he wants to start his own physical therapy clinic — a different career path indeed.

One thing from that website has not changed, however. On it, Little names his family and friends as his biggest motivators. 

That remains true to this day. The head coach has one of his brothers as an assistant coach and another as a DJ at Northeast’s home games. They often talk about their mother, remembering her fondly.

“I know if she were still alive, she’d be at every game because I’m so close to home. It’s motivation to say, ‘Mama, this one’s for you,’” Little said. “Especially when we win, I can just see that big Kool-Aid smile on her face because she loved her four kings. She loved her boys.”

Little’s mother likely would have been beaming at those games, because the Raiders aren’t just playing better basketball — they’re putting on a show.

‘I’m the hardest worker’

In addition to growing as a person and player under Coach Geter at Wilkinson County, Little got a taste of impeccable basketball atmosphere when he played at the school’s renowned home court, nicknamed “The Palace.”

“We want to bring that energy to Northeast, and the kids are coming out,” Little said. “That first game, I’m glad it was a home game. The gym was packed, the music was going and the kids felt that energy. When (the team) felt that, it gave them a push.”

The first game against Howard saw the Raiders score a whopping 81 points, 41 of which came from sophomore Tylen Jones in a career effort. Northeast has since defeated Columbus and Rutland. The team celebrated after that third win — after all, it meant they had already surpassed the two wins they had all of last season.

“They said, ‘Coach, we like how this feels,’” Little said. “I think they’re getting more excited and believing in themselves.”

The Raiders have not been perfect, of course. There was a tough loss to Spalding in their second game and, though it was close, the recent defeat against Putnam County. 

Things will not get easier in their stacked region, Region 2-A Division I. Southwest, the defending state runner-up and current No. 2 team in the classification, looms on the schedule along with other formidable foes like Dublin and East Laurens.

“You have to play teams like Putnam and Southwest — those are the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the state. I tell my kids, ‘Listen, there’s nowhere but up from here. If you can show the world that you can beat them and compete with them, who else can stand in front of you?’” Little said. “It’s all about the way you show up and practice. You have to prepare like (every game) is a state championship game.”

Little tries to motivate the team the same way he drives himself to improve. “What’s your ‘it?’” he asked them on one occasion — find your key motivator, the coach told his team, and you will do great things.

For Little, it’s his mother, his brothers and the rest of his family. It’s his memories of Morehouse and Wilkinson County, where he was always the smallest guy on the court but the hardest worker. 

These personal puzzle pieces drive Little to one key goal.

“My main goal is to show the love that (my mom) showed to so many kids throughout her life,” Little said. “I want them to feel that, and to have a goal too.”

When the Raiders play under Little, they feel that love, even if he pushes them to practice hard. When Little has them dress up in similarly suave outfits on gamedays — the students don’t often have outfits as slick as the plaid blue suit Little wore during a recent game against Rutland, but they get by — they feel it.

Little said he thinks his players at Northeast will only feel it more as they continue to win games.