A track-and-field Olympian and former national record holder’s medals and trophies were stolen from a public storage facility in Texas, and he is appealing for the thieves to return his prized possessions.
Roy “Robot” Martin, 57, disclosed that his “legacy” was taken from a Dallas public storage unit late last month, amidst a series of break-ins at the facility, as reported by Fox 4 Dallas.
“They’ve been having some break-ins. This time when they hit my storage, they took everything,” Martin expressed to the outlet.
“All my clothes. All my memorabilia. Everything that I made history that I was going to give to my grandkids to let them enjoy, somebody just took it.”
The “Robot’s” storage unit was among three that were burglarized on the same day, according to the outlet.
The Texas native stored his awards and honors in the unit due to space constraints at his residence.
“At the time, I lived around the corner. And I put my stuff in here. And where I moved to, it was just not enough room to keep everything. So I felt safe because it’s on the inside of a secured facility,” Martin shared.
The former Olympian expressed the devastation of losing all his belongings from his competitive days.
“Your stomach turns. Your gut hurts,” he told the outlet. “And it’s like why me? I mean, what’s the purpose of it?”
As the authorities investigate the break-in, Martin implored the thieves to return his prized possessions.
“Please bring it back. No questions asked. Just bring it back, and all is forgiven,” he stated.
“It means the world to me. That’s my legacy. That’s my history. If I want to tell my story, it was in that storage right there.”
Martin rose to prominence in the Track and Field community in the mid-1980s while attending Roosevelt High School in Dallas.
He was a three-time state champion and set the national record for the 200-meter sprint at the Track and Field Championships in Austin during his senior year.
“My senior year, I set the national record. Ran the 19.74 in the 200 meters. And that stood for 33 years until Noah Lyles broke it in 2014,” Martin shared.
“And then my biggest accomplishment was when I made the Olympic team as a junior in high school, the only one in history who can say that.”
The track phenom narrowly missed his chance to run for the USA Track and Field team at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, finishing fourth in the 200-meter race during the trials.
Martin was named Track and Field News “High School Athlete of the Year” in 1984 and 1985, becoming the first male athlete to win the award twice.
He later enrolled at Southern Methodist University, where he contributed to the team’s victory in the 1986 NCAA track and field championship.
Following SMU’s championship run, his coach Ralph White lauded Martin as the “best pure sprinter I’ve ever seen,” comparing him to two-time Olympic gold-winning sprinter and former Super Bowl champion Bob Hayes.
Martin made his Olympics debut in 1988 in Seoul, South Korea, but finished sixth in the 200-meter dash semifinals.
He retired from sprinting after his Olympic appearance.
In 2013, he was inducted into the Texas Track and Field Hall of Fame, followed by the Dallas Independent School District Athletic Hall of Fame in 2019.
But now, the history he once cherished and earned has been taken away.
“I earned all that. Everything I accomplished, I earned it. And that was my history. Now, my history is gone,” Martin lamented to Fox 4.
