Some men in boxing are remembered for what they did under the stadium lights.
Others aren’t—at least not in the same way. They’re the ones just outside it, in the corner, doing the kind of work that doesn’t show up in headlines.
William James “Paddy” Ryan was an exception to the rule.
He was born May 1, 1885, and by the time boxing became part of his life, he had already done more than most. At sixteen, he joined the United States Navy and stayed there for thirty years.
Somewhere in that time—at Manila Bay, during the Spanish-American War—he earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery.
It’s the kind of thing a man could build a reputation around. Ryan didn’t. He accepted it, then quietly moved on without ever mentioning he was a war hero.
When he arrived in San Francisco, he settled into the kind of work that suited him—steady, necessary, close to the ground.
Boxing fit him that way.
He didn’t arrive with a title. Over time, Paddy continued what he built upon during his time in the Navy —trainer, manager, second, matchmaker.
When James J. “Moose” Taussig left for Hawaii, Ryan took over the gym. There wasn’t much ceremony to it. The place just kept going, and he was the one keeping it lit.
In a gym like that, you learn quickly who matters. It’s not always the loudest man in the room. It’s the one fighters turn toward, on instinct. Ryan had that kind of presence.
A newspaper later called him an “old-time manager and trainer.” It may not sound grand—but in boxing, it usually means everything. You understand him better by looking at the fighters around him.
Paddy Ryan worked closely with the Filipino boxers who came through San Francisco—young men who had crossed the Pacific chasing something better, often finding very little given to them. In the gym, things were simpler. You trained. You fought. You learned fast.
Small Montana, a world flyweight champion, sat in Ryan’s corner.
There’s a photograph—Small Montana the young student on the stool, Ryan the coach leaning in. Just a moment between rounds. But it feels settled, like something both men understood without needing to say much.
Pablo Dano came through the same way, billed in his time as “Paddy Ryan’s crack Filipino.”
In the old drawings, Ryan stands just behind him, a firm hand on the shoulder of his student—steadying more than instructing. Dano had that bobbing and weaving style, low and hard to catch. It took patience to guide a fighter like that.
These weren’t one-off pairings. This was the grind with fighters who needed someone steady behind them.
He also handled men like “Sailor” Grande and George Theodoratos—fighters from a rougher era of the sport. Ryan didn’t look for easy situations. He worked with whoever came through and gave them what he could.
That kind of work rarely makes a man well known. But it makes him part of the structure of the sport.
Over time, Ryan became one of those steady figures in the San Francisco fight game. Not prominent in the way some were—but always there. And in a place like that, presence counts.
In 1942, he passed the gym on to Joe Herman and William “Bill” Newman. By then, they knew what they were getting—not just a space, but a way the place operated. Habits. Expectations. A certain rhythm.
The name would change later. That’s how these things go.
Ryan died on January 9, 1942, at sixty-one.
The papers kept it brief. The great SF Chronicle sportswriter Harry B. Smith may have said it best.
Paddy Ryan, Old-Timer in the Boxing Game, Passes On… A face in the fight world.
A manager. A trainer. A Medal of Honor awardee.
Survived by Catherine, his wife.
He didn’t leave behind stories that grow taller with time. What he left was quieter and more meaningful than that. You see it in the fighters who came through his realm—in the habits, the instincts, the small things passed along without anyone stopping to explain where they came from.
The gym changed hands, but the work stayed the same.
And somewhere in that steady rhythm—in the space between rounds, in the voice a fighter listens for when things get hard—there is still something of Paddy Ryan.
Right where he always was.
In the corner.
Acknowledgements:
- This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes.
- Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
- Top photo of William James “Paddy” Ryan excerpted, as Fair Use, from the Obituary of William James Ryan by Harry B. Smith (Source: San Francisco Chronicle. January 10, 1942. p15)