Before there was a tournament, there was Ryan. Before the banners, tennis matches, sponsors, television interviews and fundraising totals, there was a son. A friend. A gamer. A young man whose life mattered to the people around him.
Christopher “Ryan” Collins is the reason Serve It Up for Life exists. But his death is not the totality of his story. And understanding that distinction is important. When conversations about suicide begin only with the way a person died, it becomes too easy for everything that came before to disappear.
Serve It Up for Life exists to remember more:
- To remember a life.
- To acknowledge the reality of mental-health challenges.
- To encourage people to talk.
- To make resources more visible.
And to transform remembrance into something that might help another person, another family or another community.
Ryan Was a Person Before He Became a Cause
Ryan experienced significant mental-health challenges for several years. His family has spoken publicly about that journey because they do not believe mental illness should be surrounded by shame, secrecy or silence. But mental illness was only one part of Ryan’s life.
His family remembers someone whose friends turned to him when they were going through struggles of their own. Someone willing to listen. Someone who tried to help. Someone who became a sounding board for people he cared about.
And Ryan was also a gamer. That detail may seem small compared with everything that came afterward, but it matters. Gaming is part of how millions of people communicate, compete, build friendships and find communities. For some people, the friends they talk with while playing a game are every bit as meaningful as people they see in person. Ryan belonged to that world too.
Remembering him as a gamer, son and friend allows Serve It Up for Life to tell a fuller story. Not simply how Ryan died.
How Ryan lived.
January 2024 Changed Everything
Ryan died by suicide at age 20 in January 2024. For his parents, Tammy and Travis Collins, the grief was immeasurable. There was no tournament plan waiting in a folder. There was no marketing strategy. There was no expectation that their family’s loss would become a public movement. There was simply a decision that Ryan’s story should not disappear into silence.
The family wanted people to understand mental-health struggles differently. They wanted conversations to happen sooner. They wanted families to know more.
They wanted to help reduce the stigma that can make people afraid to say they are struggling. And they wanted Ryan’s willingness to care for other people to continue in some form. Out of that desire, Serve It Up for Life and the CRC Memorial Tennis Tournament began.
Why Tennis?
Tennis was a natural language for the Collins family. It offered something active and communal. People could gather around an activity they loved without making the day entirely about grief.
- They could compete.
- They could laugh.
- They could eat together.
- They could remember.
- They could talk about something serious without every moment feeling heavy.
Most importantly, tennis gave the community something it could actually do. People often respond to difficult causes by saying:
“I wish I could help.”
A tournament provides an answer.
- Play.
- Volunteer.
- Sponsor.
- Donate.
- Share.
- Invite someone.
- Start a conversation.
Those actions may seem ordinary individually. Together, they created Serve It Up for Life.
The First Rally
The first tournament demonstrated how strongly the idea resonated. USTA Southwest reported that the inaugural memorial event at Jerry Cline Tennis Center brought together 88 players and raised more than $14,000 for Breaking the Silence New Mexico.
The day included tennis, food, music and community. But numbers alone do not explain why it mattered. People showed up for a family. They showed up for Ryan.
They showed up because suicide and mental-health challenges have touched countless families, workplaces, schools, teams and friendship groups. They showed up because sometimes a community needs an invitation to talk about what it normally avoids.
The response was significant enough that USTA Southwest later honored Tammy and Travis Collins with its Dianne Miller Courage in Tennis Award. It was recognition not merely of a successful tournament, but of the courage required to turn private grief into public service.
Then the Community Grew
The second annual tournament took another step forward. Serve It Up for Life reported raising $27,000 in 2025 with the help of its sponsors, players, volunteers and supporters. That growth demonstrated that the first year was not an isolated moment.
- People wanted to come back.
- New people wanted to join.
- Businesses wanted to participate.
- Volunteers wanted to help.
- Local television wanted to tell the story.
And the tournament began developing an identity beyond the original memorial event. That identity is still rooted in Ryan. But its reach is becoming much broader.
Ryan’s Legacy Is Not a Fundraising Total
Fundraising matters.
Organizations working in mental-health education, prevention and community support need resources. But Ryan’s legacy cannot be summarized with a dollar sign. A better measure is what happens because people came together.
- A parent learns about a mental-health resource they did not previously know existed.
- A company decides to talk more openly with employees about mental well-being.
- A tennis player brings a friend to the tournament.
- A volunteer tells someone why they became involved.
- A gamer encounters a message encouraging people to seek support.
- A clinician helps the organization communicate responsibly.
- A local television segment reaches thousands of people who had never heard of Serve It Up for Life.
- A conversation begins.
Those moments are difficult to place on a fundraising thermometer.
They still matter.
Breaking Silence Without Making Suicide the Entire Story
One of the responsibilities of an organization like Serve It Up for Life is learning how to talk about suicide carefully. That means refusing two extremes. We should not pretend suicide does not exist. But we should also never sensationalize it.
Ryan’s story does not need graphic details to be powerful. His death should not be presented as inevitable. And suicide should never be reduced to one event, one relationship, one diagnosis or one explanation.
Suicide is complex.
- People who struggle can receive help.
- Recovery and healing are possible.
- Support matters.
- Connection matters.
- Professional care matters.
- Knowing where to turn matters.
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s guidance for suicide-prevention storytelling encourages stories that include hope, help, healing and available resources while avoiding graphic detail. That framework is central to how Serve It Up for Life intends to tell Ryan’s story. We will remember honestly. We will communicate responsibly. And we will keep pointing people toward support.
Why Gaming Belongs in Ryan’s Legacy
As Serve It Up for Life grows, Ryan’s connection to gaming gives the organization an opportunity to reach an entirely different community. Gamers do not exist only on screens.
- They are students.
- Parents.
- Engineers.
- Artists.
- Athletes.
- Military veterans.
- Teachers.
- Healthcare workers.
- Developers.
- Tennis players.
- And friends.
Gaming communities have their own gathering places: Twitch streams, Discord servers, collegiate esports programs, gaming cafés, conventions and online communities. They also have tremendous potential to support causes.
That is why Serve It Up for Life is beginning to explore a Controllers to Courts initiative connecting gaming and tennis around one shared principle:
community can exist anywhere people genuinely connect.
The purpose is not to portray gaming as a mental-health problem. It is the opposite. Ryan loved gaming, and that part of his life creates an authentic reason to invite gamers into the community built in his memory.
Potential future activations could include:
- Charity livestreams
- Esports partnerships
- University gaming collaborations
- Gaming-community fundraisers
- Online awareness campaigns
- Streamer participation
- Gaming-related auction items
- Volunteer projects
- Tennis-versus-gaming community challenges
Different worlds can rally around the same cause.
We Want People to Know Ryan’s Name for the Right Reasons
Serve It Up for Life is growing. That means more people will encounter Ryan’s name without ever having met him. We want those people to understand something important:
- Ryan was not a statistic.
- He was not a diagnosis.
He was not a tragedy packaged into a fundraising message. He was a person whose life had value. That is why this event carries his initials. That is why his family continues to speak. That is why players continue to return. And that is why the organization will keep evolving.
What It Means to “Serve It Up for Life”
The name carries more meaning with each year. To serve is a tennis action. But it is also something we do for another person.
- Serve your teammate.
- Serve your family.
- Serve someone who needs an ear.
- Serve your community.
- Serve an organization doing difficult work.
- Serve someone by asking how they are doing—and actually listening to the answer.
- Serve by making an introduction.
- Serve by volunteering.
- Serve by refusing to contribute to shame around mental illness.
- Serve by telling someone that asking for help is allowed.
That is the larger mission.
Carrying Ryan Forward
The Collins family cannot change January 2024. Serve It Up for Life was never created because anyone believed a tournament could erase that loss. It was created because love can still produce action after loss.
The third CRC Memorial Tennis Tournament will take place this October 24, 2026 in Albuquerque.
- There will be serves.
- Rallies.
- Competition.
- Food.
- Sponsors.
- Volunteers.
- Old friends.
- New participants.
And probably some arguments about line calls. But beneath all of it is something much simpler. A family remembers Ryan. A community joins them. And together, they try to make it easier for someone else to know that support exists.
That is the legacy we hope to build. Not a legacy defined only by how Ryan died. A legacy inspired by the ways his life continues to bring people together.
Continue Ryan’s Legacy
Register for the CRC Memorial Tennis Tournament: COMING SOON!
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If You Need Support
If you or someone you know is experiencing emotional distress or a mental-health crisis, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available. Call or text 988 to connect with a trained crisis counselor.
You do not have to wait until a situation becomes unbearable to reach out for support.
