Rev. Ray Martin

The Reverend Ray Martin has been a part of the Houston Boxing Scene about as long as anybody, and longer than most. His Progressive Amateur Boxing Association has operated in the same location, on Dowling near Elgin in Houston's Third Ward, for 35 years. It's a small but well-kept facility, with one ring, a couple two-string bags, a few heavy bags and a single speedbag. Martin's impact on the community, when one considers the sheer volume of young men he has likely helped steer away from paths of crime or drugs and into productive lives, is impossible to measure.

HBS - You didn't always live the clean and righteous life that you do now. You apparently had some trouble with the law at one point.

RRM - When I was enrolled in Prairie View A & M College right after I was discharged from the United States Air Force I was buying a car from a dealer here in Houston and I was making my payments and everything and he unjustly repossessed my car. I tried to talk reason with him and he would not listen to reason. I wouldn't just let him take my money under such unscrupulous circumstances so I bought a gun and I came back down here and I shot him in the legs about three times.

HBS - And you ended up doing a couple of years?

RRM - No, they just put me on a five-year probation because I think everyone understood how bad a deal I had gotten and I got off with a five-year probation.

HBS - And shortly after that is when you somehow converted, or were you already a religious person would you say?

RRM - While I was still at Texas Southern University with one of my classmates, I had left Prairie View after I got into the incident with the car dealer, I came to TSU. Prairie View did not suspend me but they asked me to leave so they would not have to suspend me. That's what led me to enroll in Texas Southern University. While I was attending TSU some of my roommates talked me into going to church with them, Trinity Methodist Church. The Reverend Doctor Robbie Hayes was the pastor and I was so impressed with him that I guess I just kind of stayed affiliated with that church and then eventually I joined the church and eventually became a spirit there and while I was at Trinity as a matter of fact I was called into the ministry while I was there at Trinity Methodist Church.

HBS - So your involvement in the ministry came before you decided to start a boxing gym. Tell us how you came up with that idea?

RRM - Well that was somewhat grew out of my experiences in my own amateur boxing at the South Central YMCA. I knew that boxing had done a great deal for me recognition-wise and meeting people and as a matter of fact I guess it's boxing that really saved and helped me through my five-year probation. I said if it could do it for me it could probably do it for others. So after they closed down the program at the YMCA I got involved in a summer youth program called Operation Champ and I started a boxing program in Operation Champ and that was a part of the whole Harris County Economic Opportunity organization but that program was just ofr the summer months. After the summer months was over there was a gentlemen there named Darc Ferguson who helped me to get the job in the summer program and he also worked with me to get hired on in the Harris County Economic Opportunity organization after the summer was over. While I was working with that program I started a couple of boxing programs for that organization. Then I resigned from that organization in 1967 because a gentleman I was working with up in the community action phase of that program had started a program called Hope Development. He told me if I could come out and work for his organization he would give me vehicle pay and plus he'd give me more opportunities to work with the boxing program. So I left the Harris County Economic Opportunity organization and went and started working for Hope and that's when I opened up the first George Foreman Gym there on Lyons Avenue. That was back in 1968 and George was there for the dedication of that. It was right after he had won the Olympics.

HBS - So how did you get to starting the location where you have now been at for 35 years?

RRM - In the summer of '69 I resigned from Hope Development. that's when I got with the attorney that got me started with the Harris County Economic Opportunity organization and some of the people that I knew and we set up the Progressive Amateur Boxing Association and we got it chartered by the State of Texas and this attorney promised to pay the first six months rent on the building there and in the meantime he was working with me to get a grant. In January 1971 we finally got a grant from the city retroactive back to November of 1970 and we've been there ever since.

HBS - So many gyms come and go, program come and go, what's the secret to why you've been there so long?

RRM - I guess it's the premise that we set the program up under. I guess right from the beginning with the gentleman who donated the money to make it possible for us to buy the building there on Dowling and we had a little excess and he informed to take it and put it up into some type of account that would grow interest and it was out of that advice that we came up with the P.A.B.A. Living Endowment. And I guess it's not working in a hand-to-mouth situation and depending completely on federal grants and donations or whatever but trying to establish some type of economic base of our own that could help sustain the program in hard times and I guess it was out of that thinking that we set up the P.A.B.A. Living Endowment plan and I guess that is one of the thing that has kept us going is we have managed the resources that have been donated to the organization.

HBS - What would be your wild guess as to the number of kids that have come through that gym in 35 years?

RRM - I gues that actually enrolled in the program and participated on some phase of the program, either working one of the summer programs or actually participating in other summer activities I'd say it would be no less than 10,000, no more than 15,000.

HBS - It's got to be pretty satisfying for you to see kids come through and develop in a positive way, whether it's through boxing or one of the other programs.

RRM - It gives me a real good feeling. As a matter of fact "Third Ward" Billy's mother enrolled him in the program when he was about 13 years old so it makes me feel real good to see how he's progressed and where he's moving to. So yes in answer to your question it's a real good feeling to see anybody that's been able to come through the program and develop. As a matter of fact a gentleman who was just appointed head of the Houston Job Partnership Jodie Joies was in the program that we started when I was working for hope and you know he's the president of one of the most prestigious business organizations in the city.

HBS - Tell us a little bit briefly about your amateur career? What did you like about boxing?

RRM - What I can appreciate most about it at this point is the struggle that I had and all of the changes that I went through, trying to be an amateur boxer, trying to get a chance to fight in the local Golden Gloves and what have you because it's from those struggles I gained a tremendous amount of strength from that and if I had not gone through those struggles I probably wouldn't have had the strength to keep P.A.B.A. together, wouldn't have the strength to deal with the different problems that I run into on a day-to-day basis. But because I've been through so much it kind of gave me a real tough mind that's helped me to survive and I guess that's one of the things that have helped me to keep P.A.B.A. going is those past experiences.

HBS - The world has changed an awful lot in the last 35 or 40 years and that includes race relations in this country. How has that affected you if at all?

RRM - I think it has changed a great deal because when I was boxing amateur myself I'd never get a chance to fight in the local Golden Gloves but since that time we've not only fought in the Golden Gloves but we have hosted the Golden Gloves. As a matter of fact I'm a member of the board of the USA Boxing (Gulf Association). At one point I wasn't able to participate at that level. At the present time we're real involved and I guess that gives me a good feeling to think that back at point I wasn't able to even participate and now being a very vital part of the organization so that's a real good feeling.

HBS - How long do you think the P.A.B.A. is going to be around?

RRM - The organization is designed, that's why we got that P.A.B.A. Living Endowment plan set up. In the charter itself it's perpetual so hopefully it will just keep going as long as time exists and that someone would keep it moving.