Friday, Sept. 10, 2010 | 5:57 p.m.
Truth be told, UFC light heavyweight Jared Hamman could have spent his entire life working as an assistant college football coach and been happy doing it.
Only thing was, he found out he had a knack for this mixed martial arts thing.
Hamman will look to score his second win in the UFC this month when he meets Kyle Kingsbury at the UFC Fight Night 22 on Sept. 15 in Austin, Texas.
In the past, this time of year represented football season to Hamman, who played defensive end and then served as defensive line coach at the University of Redlands in Southern California.
However, in 2008, Hamman gave up his coaching duties to focus solely on MMA — which, according to him, ranks as the hardest decision of his life.
“To be honest, I still question it all the time,” Hamman said. “I absolutely loved coaching. I could wake up and do that my whole life.”
The decision came shortly after Hamman (12-2) suffered the first loss of his career — a 15-second knockout at the hands, or knee, of Po’ai Suganuma on a ShoXC event in April 2008.
Up until that fight, Hamman had managed to build a perfect 9-0 record, despite mostly cramming his training in during the football offseason.
After that fight, he knew he had to fully dedicate himself to fighting or give it up completely.
“After that loss in 2008, I had to do what I always told my football players to do,” Hamman said. “I told them, ‘If you’re going to do something, might as well do it 100 percent.’
“When I got that first loss, I realized I’d like to take some time away from football to pursue this fight thing.”
Hamman immediately had his doubts about whether he made the right decision that fall when the EliteXC promotion he signed with started to go bankrupt.
Although he avenged his only loss with a first-round TKO win over Suganuma that August, it was the last time Hamman would step into the cage for nearly 15 months.
“EliteXC held me under contract for a long time,” Hamman said. “They kept saying, ‘We have a fight for you,’ but then they didn’t. That lasted for a real long time.
“That definitely sucked because here comes the football season and I’m not coaching, but I’m not fighting at the same time. It was like, ‘Man, what am I doing? What is the point of this?’”
In 2009, Hammon sought out new management, which quickly negotiated his release from EliteXC and got him a contract with the UFC.
Fighting for the first time in more than a year, Hamman’s UFC debut came against Alexander Gustafsson at UFC 105 in Manchester, England.
Prior to the fight, Hamman had trouble adjusting to the time change and then had a bad reaction to herbs he used to help him fall asleep.
He vomited in the locker room moments before walking to the octagon that night and ended up getting knocked out by Gustafsson in 41 seconds.
“I wasn’t feeling that well, but it’s not like you can just quit or back out,” Hamman said. “I looked at (teammate) Antoni Hardonk before the fight and said, ‘Hey man, I know we’ve got a game plan, but I’m just going to go out and try to finish the fight.’
“That whole experience was kind of a mess.”
Hamman has since bounced back with a unanimous-decision win over Rodney Wallace at UFC 111, which earned Fight of the Night honors.
He’ll face an evenly matched opponent in Kingsbury (8-2), who trains out of the highly regarded American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif.
With a 1-1 record through two UFC fights, Hamman knows a loss on Sept. 15 would likely lead to his dismissal from the biggest MMA organization in the world.
Despite that, Hamman says, he doesn’t feel any added pressure for this fight and admits he never dreamed about competing in the UFC to begin with.
He found something he was good at and wouldn’t allow himself to not find out where it led. If it ends up leading back to a playbook and the football sidelines, he’s fine with that.
“I’m committed until the UFC lets me go,” Hamman said. “If the UFC lets me go, I’ll make a decision from there. But to neglect coaching to fight on smaller shows, I’m not sure right now if I could handle that.
“I honestly have nothing to lose in this fight. I’m just going to go out there and do my best and not look back.”
Brett Okamoto can be reached at 948-7817 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at LVSunFighting
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