Most people go to college to figure out their life, their goals and their future to determine what type of person they will be the rest of their life and what career they will lead.
Long Beach native Jared Rollins did all this at Chapman University and graduated with a degree in business advertising and found a career in his field. But it turned out he wasn't content with what he was doing, so he dropped everything and left to become a mixed martial artist.
"My mom didn't want me to fight," said Rollins of what happened once he broke the news to his mother that he was going to take up MMA instead of what he studied. "After I was done with school I worked for Red Bull and did some advertising. Then after a bit of doing that, I took off."
Rollins didn't have second thoughts and dedicated as much time as possible in order to become the complete MMA athlete he envisioned.
The former football player at Los Alamitos High and Chapman put his career in business on hold and left home to follow his dream, but little did he know his dream was going to begin with him spending his nights sleeping on a gym floor.
"I lived in the jiu jitsu gym where I began to train at," said Rollins, who graduated from Los Alamitos in 1995 and went to Chapman on a football scholarship. "That's how things start, you know."
Rollins' hard work was not wasted as he was able to learn jiu jitsu and the ground game well enough that he took the next step, and one of the most important in his career, and traveled to Rio de Janeiro and immersed himself into the mecca of jiu jitsu.
"I was able to see how beautiful Rio de Janeiro was but more importantly, I was able to learn the technical side of jiu jitsu," said the 5-foot-9, 170-pound fighter. "After being in Brazil for a few months I came back with a lot more under my belt. I saw lots of stuff and learned lots of things not just in training, but in life."
Now, nearly eight years since he began studying Brazilian jiu jitsu, the 30-year-old Rollins is part of "The Ultimate Fighter 6". He is looking to get his foot in the door with the largest MMA organization in the world in the UFC.
Rollins made his MMA debut in 2002 and has fought in many different organizations, but making the TUF show may prove to be the best career move he could make as recent participants in past seasons have succeeded in the spotlight the exposure has given them.
"I have been training with Collin Oyama for three years now, and luckily I landed in a good camp, with a good environment so that helped me a lot once I got to the show," said Rollins, who now trains in Irvine. "TUF show opened a lot of doors for me. I went in there looking to learn more than anything, but I ended up being one of the more experienced fighters on the show."
The Ultimate Fighter show is a tournament with each show ending with an elimination bout until there are only two fighters left. Most fans of the show watch it just for the bouts but there also fans who watch the show for the clashes, the bickering and the nonsense that occurs when 16 fighters live in the same house for weeks and eventually have to go toe-to-toe with each other.
"What you see is what you get," Rollins said. "At first it wasn't too bad but the more time we spent in the house just training and with no outside contact the more the emotions began to run high. There was no TV, no computer, no newspaper, no nothing. So you can imagine what goes on."
But as a seasoned fighter, Rollins has more respect for the show and the opportunity that a rare chance like winning the tournament and earning a contract with the UFC can offer.
"Some people are on the show just because they really want to be on TV, and there are people like me who want to fight and learn," Rollins said. "TUF was a big step in my life and career. The process to actually get in was hard and long, but once I got there and realized that I would be working with pros like Matt Serra, Matt Hughes and dealing with Dana White directly and working close with them it was an eye-opening experience. I was old enough to be on the show and enjoy every minute of it, I wasn't going to just let it go by. ... It was a huge break and a huge opportunity for me."
)
)
