A Quote by T.J. Dillashaw

Urijah is the one who got me in the sport, he's the one who talked me into fighting instead of going into grad school. — © T.J. Dillashaw
Urijah is the one who got me in the sport, he's the one who talked me into fighting instead of going into grad school.
I don't want to fight Urijah. He's the one that got me into the sport.
I graduated college in 2010, I thought I'd go to grad school then and I was accepted under a different program and I ended up moving away and pursuing fighting instead of graduate school, but I knew I always wanted to do it.
I got some funky scholarships to play soccer and did well in my SATs, so I went off to college and then grad school but found that that wasn't me. My family, relieved I seemed to have come to my senses, were happy to let me go to film school.
When I was studying photography, I became interested in conflict photojournalism, and that got me interested in lighting. Then I realized there was this amazing thing called cinematography where you could kind of tell more complete stories photographing for film. So I ended up going to AFI grad school for that.
I probably would never fight Urijah for the belt to be honest. It's not going to be a money thing for me that would give me that fight. I've got a lot of respect for him, I really do. A really humble dude, he's been nothing but honest and real to me ever since the first day I met him.
I think the book that really kind of woke me up a little bit when I was starting to write was 'Winesburg, Ohio' by Sherwood Anderson. I was in grad school at Brown, going for an M.A. in creative writing. Those stories seemed to me to be doing away with pretty writing.
I don't go out there and talk crap about Urijah and there's plenty to talk about. I'm just gonna continue to be a humble guy and appreciate what he did for me in this sport.
I would consider it the greatest experience of my life, it's the experience that made me a man, that taught me so many life lessons that you get from sport, ones that I've been able to pass down. (It was) invaluable, beyond words, got me through school, high school, and college, it was the greatest gift I gave myself.
I'm one hundred percent into my life, and into my fighting career. This is who I want to be in the future - as a mother - and if I'm going to leave the sport, I leave the sport. When I finish with fighting, I'm done.
I had a Spanish teacher in high school. I rarely got in trouble in her room because I felt I was disappointing her if I got a bad grade. That had more power over me than teachers who told me I talked too much. That level of respect I had for her made me not want to fail for her.
I think my parents wanted me to do something very normal, have a normal person job and not be confronted by the instability of an artistic pursuit, but there wasn't really a lot they could do to stop me. I was, at one point, going to go to law school when I finished high school, but the next day I got accepted into acting school and there was no real question in my mind of what I was going to do.
Sometimes my negativity worked to my advantage, and early in my career, it got me going. But you need to understand that you're not just fighting opponents, you're also fighting yourself.
I remember getting out of grad school and coming to New York and not wanting to get a teaching job because I wanted to work on my own, to develop my own ideas. There isn't that time now. Artists are exhibiting while they are still in grad school. There isn't that safety cushion.
I didn't play a great deal of sport in primary school. It was not until I went away to boarding school in Sussex that I really got into sport.
I wish I had the luxury of time to read and write like grad students do. That sounds pretty awesome. When I was writing my first book one of my friends was going to grad school at the same time and I heard a lot of stories about drinking, too. I feel like everyone was having affairs.
I had a really dark time after the Olympic Games... But then I said to myself, 'This is a sport that's blessed me with a home, with an education, with some money. I can't hate this sport. This sport took me out of Louisiana. This sport gave me a chance when so many people don't get a chance. And I love this sport.'
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