Martin Billings, a San Mateo High School football standout who went on to lead Menlo-Atherton to its first Central Coast Section championship, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 2024 and is now fighting the degenerative disease, the San Mateo Daily Journal reported Tuesday, July 28.

ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, destroys nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help offset Billings' healthcare costs and support his family; supporters can search "Martin Billings" at GoFundMe.com.

Billings' roots run deep in San Mateo. He played defensive end under legendary coach Buz Williams, earning All Bay Area honors in 1985 when the Bearcats went 12-0 and captured the CCS Division II title. He graduated in 1986 and was inducted into the San Mateo High School Athletics Hall of Fame in 2010.

After San Mateo High, Billings played at College of San Mateo under coach Tom Martinez in 1987, then earned a scholarship to Oregon State, where he played two seasons and graduated with a degree in sociology. He returned to San Mateo High as defensive coordinator and varsity track coach for four years before spending three seasons coaching defense at College of San Mateo.

In January 1999, Menlo-Atherton named Billings head football coach. The Bears' program was struggling.

"I definitely remember when Martin got hired as the head coach, as a rival coach, you're like, 'Uh oh. Now they're going to have some stability,'" said Steve Sell, current Aragon High School athletic director and the Dons' former varsity football coach, whose teams competed against Billings' Bears for four seasons.

The turnaround was swift. By his second season in 2000, Billings led M-A to a 9-1 regular-season record and the Bears' first CCS playoff appearance since 1996. Two years later, quarterback T.C. Ostrander threw five touchdowns as M-A rallied from a halftime deficit to beat Homestead 48-34 in the 2002 CCS Division II final. It was the program's first section championship.

Ostrander went on to play quarterback at Stanford.

Billings compiled a 29-15 record in four seasons but stepped down in February 2003. He had bought a home in Elk Grove, south of Sacramento, because he could no longer afford to live on the Peninsula with three children ages 2 and under.

He never stopped coaching. Billings taught and coached at Sheldon High School, then spent six years as an assistant on T.J. Ewing's staff at Monterey Trail. In 2021, he returned to the head coaching role at Cosumnes Oaks High School in Elk Grove, his first head job in nearly two decades.

Sell told the Daily Journal that Billings had a "notable positive impact" on every program he touched, and that everybody in the league knew it.

Football runs in the family. Billings' father, Chuck, was in the San Francisco 49ers' training camp in the early 1970s.