The coaching paths of Eddie Sutton and Frank Martin never crossed consistently — Sutton left OSU after 2005-2006, and Martin joined the Big 12 as a Kansas State assistant in 2006-2007 — but there’s a mutual level of respect between the two, particularly on the part of Martin.
Martin parlayed a successful high school coaching job into a gig at the Division I level spanning from the mid 80s to the early aughts, during which time Sutton was thriving at Kentucky and then at Oklahoma State. It’s easy to assume that Martin likely once saw him as a role model of sorts.