Chattanooga native Ryan Martin, an undefeated professional boxer, gestures while speaking with Mayor Andy Berke on Tuesday evening. The City Council and Hamilton County Commission both honored him with proclamations.Ryan "Blue Chip" Martin made a triumphant return to Central High School on Wednesday afternoon.
The 2011 Central graduate won the World Boxing Council's Continental Americas lightweight championship on Sept. 10 in Inglewood, Calif.
Now 16-0 in a three-year professional career based in Cleveland, Ohio, Martin was able to show off his title belt as he gave a short talk in Central's gymnasium to the school's fall-sports athletes. His comments were met with warm applause, and he spent a good bit of time afterward in short conversations and phone photos with the athletes.
With his manager, Tim VanNewhouse, he presented his shiny trunks from his 15th win - in Birmingham in July - to the school.
Martin spoke about the pain he feels every time he sees bad news on Facebook about the hometown he loves and follows. That pain got intensely personal this time last year when his younger brother, Kevin Albert Jr., was gunned down, and again on Sept. 5 when a friend, Jasmine Hines, was one of the victims in a Chattanooga double homicide.
"I love this city," Martin said in a separate conversation, "and when I see all the bad things happening here, it makes me want to come back even more and talk to kids."
As he told the Central athletes, "When I got a call at 2 a.m. that Little Kevin had been shot to death, it was the hardest thing I have gone through in my life. I cried all night. And then two weeks ago my friend Jasmine was shot in the head, and I read about it on Facebook."
The theme of his message was "Just make the right choices. If you focus and if you've got the determination, you can be what you want to be. Sports is not the only way to be successful, but you can decide to do something different from what other people are doing around you, if they're not making good choices.
"I learned from examples around me what not to do."
Steve Lewis, now Central's athletic director and an assistant principal, was a counselor at the Harrison school when Martin attended, and they became very close.
"Even though counselors are by grade, Ryan was one I kept all the way through," Lewis said Wednesday. "In the ninth grade he really struggled. He was a regular 15-year-old boy, and he had a really rough home life, and he was a little bit of a handful. There were times I had to really go to bat for him with his teachers - give him another chance, another chance - and they did. The teachers here were great with him.
"About the end of the ninth grade something clicked and he started making right choices regularly. In the 10th grade he was a good student. There still were things we needed to talk about at times, but he had turned the corner."
Martin told the Central athletes that the Continental Americas title was "a small step to bigger things," and he wasn't talking about just boxing, although a world championship is certainly a big goal.
"He's become a world champion in life," Joe Smith, one of his YCAP Boxing mentors, said in introducing Martin to the audience.
Local government officials showed their appreciation for his achievements, the City Council with a proclamation Tuesday evening and the Hamilton County Commission with a similar one Wednesday morning.
"Basically, we were recognizing and congratulating him for his accomplishments and being a great ambassador for Hamilton County," Commission Vice Chairman Randy Fairbanks said.
"He spoke a little bit and everyone was impressed with his story, and he got a standing ovation," Fairbanks added. "He just spoke about two minutes, but it was powerful."
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.