It was quite the intimidating Sunday afternoon, US Open finals day for me. Sixteen years old, the 16th seed, second major, first US Open, as an amateur, playing Chris Evert.
I was obsessed with ‘The Swish of the Curtain’ by Pamela Brown when I was a child. It’s about a group of kids who create their own Amateur Theatre company. I was already absolute in my decision to be an actor by this point, but if anything, it confirmed to me that I was on the right path.
I think I already proved that I wasn’t just fighting for the money, because I fought as an amateur. I fought 90 fights for free.
I was 20, I was an amateur from 14 but my first professional role was at 22.
I would like to attribute my range of interests to being an independent intellectual, but although I’m independent, I’m not sure I qualify as an intellectual. Basically, I’m an old-fashioned amateur.
That’s where my amateur background helps. You step on a scale, you fight whoever they tell you to fight.
My father and my uncle used to be amateur monologuists because their generation grew up with Henry Irving and the like, and they had that style of delivery, of declamation: ‘The Belllllls!’ What we call ‘ham’ now, larger than life.
I wanted to show people the sweet science I have, from my amateur background.
In the mid-1970s, there was this huge boom of stand-up comedy throughout North America. I went to see a show at a club called Yuk-Yuks, in Toronto, and I was just fascinated. I ended up coming back for amateur hour on a Monday at midnight and got up there without any thought as to what might come of it.
I was really into sports, playing track and field, amateur wrestling, volleyball, and soccer. I was a very active kid and teenager.
You know, criticism began as the province of amateurs, of wealthy men who liked the arts.
People don’t usually have long careers as heavyweights because they mature into the role. Look at amateur wrestling, you don’t usually see guys go to heavyweight as freshman. I was just blessed that even though I wasn’t as big as some of the other guys, I was able to step in right away at heavyweight.
I started playing golf after a broken knee led me to quit my career as an elite gymnast. It wasn’t long before I became one of the world’s top-ranked amateur players.
Without social media, I’d probably just be a quirky, amateur photographer with a hard drive full of photos. I’d be cold calling respected publications, begging for a feature.
I suppose every filmmaker, at least the filmmakers I really like, are amateur psychologists to a degree. Or they come from a psychological approach, I guess.
My first four fights in amateur at middleweight, and the first four professional were at welterweight. And I just kind of went down from there.
I am merely an amateur; being referred as a lyricist is a far fetched dream for me, and I feel I don’t entirely deserve it yet.
The story of ‘Punyakoti’ is real-intense. It has a lot of layers and is not as simple as the stuff I wrote when I was an amateur.
I’m an amateur photographer, apart from being a professional one, and I think maybe my amateur pictures are the better ones.
My main objective is to prepare candidates for professional baseball; however, the majority of our graduates will go home as much better qualified amateurs.
Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it my be.
When I fought in the amateurs and fought New York guys, they had a different swag, a different style, and maybe they didn’t take a liking to Texas fighters to begin with.
You spend your life having lessons, practising and competing as an amateur, and working during the day. As you get to the top end of the amateur field, you try not to work anymore; you earn your living through dancing, maybe by doing a bit of teaching. It’s an ongoing life’s work.
In love, women are professionals, men are amateurs.
I used to be an amateur inventor when I was a kid; I’m always inventing something.
I just quit in the third year of high school and started singing at amateur hours.
Amateurism is the strongest form of discrimination in sports. Because it discriminates against the underprivileged, it discriminates against the poor. If we want sports to go back to the wealthy, let’s make it amateur again.
There are a lot of advantages to being an American, but being an amateur athlete is not one of them. Other countries step into your life more, but they take care of you.
I’m 0 for 3 with marriage – the scoreboard doesn’t lie, never has. So what we all have is a marriage of the heart. To sully or contaminate or radically disrespect this union with a shameful contract is something that I will leave to the amateurs and the Bible grippers.
I’ve been privy to many athletic environments, both amateur and professional.
I never trained in pro wrestling with The Sheik, but I did amateur wrestling with pro wrestlers in my dad’s basement.
I always had the desire to perform. If it wasn’t my career now, I’d still be doing amateur dramatics. It’s just something you love, and when you get paid to do it, you pinch yourself every day.
My dad was a great athlete. He started golf at a late age. He started me off real young and all of a sudden both of us got to where we were pretty good players. I was this 12-year-old thinking he was going to be the next Tiger Woods and all of a sudden, before you know it, I’m playing in the State Amateur.
The flaw of an amateur is to assume what’s in our head is what’s on the page.
Amateur wrestling, you can go by instinct. Pro wrestling, you have to memorize, and you have to go by what moves you said you were going to do. Sometimes you have to feel the crowd and do the moves at the right time and know the timing and tell a good story.
I’ve worked so hard, I’ve won a lot in my junior career, did great things in my amateur career, was 6-0 in match play in NCAAs, won NCAAs two years in a row, got third individually one year, and now I have three wins out here on the PGA Tour.
Professional or amateur, athletes want to see progress. We like to see numbers and metrics improve, and when you have deeper insight into what’s going on inside your body, you’re empowered to make changes to improve and become stronger.
Over the course of six amateur fights and two professional fights I learned a lot about how to get things done, how to pick myself up after disappointment, how to work through frustration and how to process moments of success.
I did a musical when I was 17, an amateur show, and I loved it.
My father was a GP; my mother was a teacher and amateur actress. My father was a bit of a storyteller, but the acting influence must have been from her – yes, put it down to my mother.
I have this amateur side attraction to, and interest in, the sciences and biology and physics and evolution. Paleontology is of interest to me. I’m interested in the way these fields have helped us understand how we are human and why we are human.
If there was no fame involved and very minimal money – which is the case for most actors – I’d still be doing it. If I wasn’t good enough to be a professional, I’d be an amateur actor.
I believe amateur boxing training should be available in schools. Not for all, but for those who want to.
I lost in the amateurs, losing a controversial fight that stopped me going to an Olympic Games – and it’s not a nice feeling.
My dad’s been giving me Snickers since I was six years old. Since I first turned amateur, my dad’s been giving it to me.
As an amateur, I trained in some real hard schools of knocks. In Cuba, they would have judges on three sides of the ring just for sparring sessions. They train under exactly the same conditions as they fight, and it was a great experience.
Volunteering has been undervalued in Britain for a long time. Often it has been seen as a kind of cut-price, amateur version of work that would be better done by the state. When politicians speak about it, people hear in the background the sound of budgets being cut.
I’m obsessed with karaoke, but I don’t like to sing. I just like to go and watch amateur singers.
Some economists seem to think that only a credentialed economist has the right to be utterly wrong about an issue of economics. Their contempt for amateurs – columnists with broad audiences, for example – would sear the lungs if inhaled.
UFC 203, Stipe Miocic is defending his belt in Cleveland, Ohio, that’s where I spent a lot of my amateur career and boxing, it’s an hour and 20 minutes from my hometown. I would like to dance with someone there in the Quicken Loans Arena.
The New York Times Bestseller ‘The Amateur,’ written by Ed Klein, former editor of the ‘New York Times Magazine,’ is one of the best books I’ve read.
When I was coming up through the programs with the Amateur Basketball Association, it was height: they looked for the tall players, and they looked to develop us. I was 15 when they first got me.
I had – along with my singing and dancing, I was very happy to be born in the hometown of Dylan Thomas. So the government was financing dramatic groups and amateur dramatics and stuff like that.
I learnt about plants from my father, who was a herbalist and an amateur microscopist.
I’ve returned to being an amateur without any ties or strings attached, which gives me a freedom I never had before.
