ATTLEBORO -- For Attleboro High School gymnastics coach Mike Martin, it was an ending and a valedictory.

Martin told a crowd of about 150 at Tuesday's alumni gymnastics meet that this most likely would be his final season at the helm after more than three decades as one of the city's most influential athletic figures.

Spectators, many of them members of Martin's teams of the past, sought out their coach for hugs and high-fives.

At least one former athlete came almost 3,000 miles to honor his coach.

`` Coach Martin instilled a lot of great building blocks in us,'' said Keith Rooks, a 1985 graduate who came from his home in Hermosa Beach, Calif., to attend the even. `` It wasn't just the athletics,'' he said. `` There were lessons that you could apply to life, too.''

Rooks said Martin stressed values of hard work, being on time for every practice and following through that lasted long after his last high school meet.

Now a sales executive, Rooks later became an all-American at the University of Iowa and toured for three years with a professional gymnastic team sponsored by Bud Light.

Like Rooks, other former students said Martin provided a role model as well as instructor in technique on the rings, pommel horse and the vault.

`` He was really like a second father to me,'' said Robin Diaz, who started training at age 9 at a gymnastics academy run by Martin and his wife, Diane.

Diaz later competed at Attleboro High School and eventually coached women's gymnastics under her old mentor.

Other former athletes said Martin's insistence on conscientiousness was matched only by his compassion. The coach provided a ready supply of encouragement and was known to let athletes do yard work around his home for money to help meet expenses for national meets.

Somehow the tough coach-with-a-heart-of-gold persona seemed to work.

Martin's AHS boys' teams brought home three state championships, and all-state teams mentored by Martin captured a string of national women's titles.

Martin founded the AHS gymnastics team in 1974, and was soon joined by his wife, who became the school's first women's coach. Diane Martin left the position in 1978 because of the increasing demands of raising a family.

After a procession of replacements, Mike Martin also took on the mantle of women's coach in 1985.

The Martins operated a highly-successful gymnastics academy for many years before selling the business three years ago. Many of Martin's high school athletes got their start as grade school children attending classes at his academy.

Martin graduated from Attleboro High School in 1967, but later came back as a physical education teacher. He retired last year.

Martin also found time to serve as an assistant football coach, and was inducted this year as an honorary member of the Attleboro Area Football Hall of Fame.

The coach said that because of his long-term coaching relationship with many of his athletes, he's become close with many of them and their families.

`` You spend so much time with them, it's almost more than you spend with your own children,'' he said. `` In many ways, it's like being a surrogate parent.''

Martin's son, former Attleboro High School football quarterback and gymnast Tyler Martin, was among those participating in the meet Tuesday.

Martin said he and his wife are building a house in Florida and plan to split time between Massachusetts and the Sunshine State.