Trevor Wittman: "It's so Important for Me to Give Back to the Community"

One of the genuine good guys of the sport, Trevor Wittman, the head trainer at Wheat Ridge, Colorado’s Grudge Training Facility, is on a mission to leave his mark on this world—both inside the ring and out.

In just over 15 months since opening its doors, Grudge is already considered by many to be one of the sport’s preeminent training facilities. Boasting a roster that includes Shane Carwin, Rashad Evans, Nate Marquardt and Brendan Schaub, Grudge has quickly become one of the most sought after gyms on the continent.

As impressive as his gym’s early success has been, Wittman prides himself on his team’s commitment to giving back to the community. Among a number of other initiatives spearheaded by the crew at Grudge, Wittman and Co. have been hosting free anti-bullying seminars every weekend, have begun doing both food and toy drives, and most recently, visited Denver’s Children’s Hospital.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Wittman about, among other topics, his team’s emotional visit to the Denver Children’s Hospital.

What inspired you to reach out to the Denver Children’s Hospital?

It was brought to us by Fight Ribbon and when we heard what they were trying to do, we were instantly in. To be able to go and spend some time with the kids is something I thought was the best thing we could do. I know the heartache that those kids go through and the day-to-day fight is a rough one. Man, it was just a great opportunity.

Could you tell me about your experience?

It was great in a way and it was horrible in a way. We had a fighter who had to leave after about 10 minutes of being there—he just couldn’t take it. You see kids with cancer, who are in there missing limbs, and kids that are in there that are living day-to-day, not month-to-month. To be able to go and witness that is a hard, hard thing to go through and the fighters that went there and had the opportunity to be a part of that—I commend them, I tip my hat to them. Everybody that joined in—even the guys that couldn’t make it—it’s such an honour to have fighters that would give up their day-to-day life to go give these kids attention. It was a heart-wrenching day, but it was so, so worth it.

Was there any part of your experience that left a particularly lasting impression on you?

The part that sticks with me is the gratitude and the thankfulness that the kids gave back. There wasn’t a room that we went in where we didn’t get a smile—some of the kids that we saw weren’t able to communicate with us—and the smile and the looking-in-the-eyes was just key—as you leave the room you could almost feel the enlightenment that you gave them that day. I’m telling you, that was probably the biggest thing that I remembered. It wasn’t just the kids—it was the families, too. There were a few parents that we got to meet and just how excited they were to have their kids have someone visit them, because they’re in a room—they can’t leave the hospital. It wasn’t that we are fighters—there were a couple kids that knew Brendan from the videogames—but it wasn’t that, it was just, "Hey, man—someone came to see me." That’s what sticks with me and I’ll think about that every day. We think we have it hard, but we don’t have it hard at all—what I mean by “we” is me and my team.

How much do you think your visits mean to the kids?

I think it was huge. We got a response from the President of the hospital, who said that our visit—and this is just so cool and I’m so proud of—was the best visit they’ve ever had. They were worried about us coming in—it took us four months to get in. They actually watched us on camera—they were keeping an eye on us, because a lot of people identify violence with MMA. After the visit, they told us that we were the best visit that they ever had—we had the best response from the kids and the parents and we actually spent time with them—they actually had to pull us out of the room. They told us that there were athletes in there—I’m not going to say which ones—but they had athletes in there a week before us who stopped in, “Hey, you want to take a picture with me?”, take a picture and sign a picture. They welcomed us back—they said any time we wanted to come back we were able to come back. To me, that was the proudest moment of the visit, when the President of the hospital, who didn’t want us to come, didn’t want us to visit, tells us that we were the best visit and the most appreciated—that’s like winning a world-championship to me.

How much do you think your visit meant to the families of the children?

If you could just see the smile on the parents’ faces—there was actually one parent who cried and gave every one of us a hug—to feel and see the emotion and, again, the gratitude that they showed us for coming in and saying “hi” to their kid and having a conversation with them—you brighten their day, you bring sunshine into the building. The response from the family was great.

Do you feel that there are still a lot of misconceptions regarding mixed martial artists?

Yeah, I think there are huge misconceptions. We go out there and fight, but the thing is, is that I want people who don’t understand the sport to watch the final outcome. You’ve got the talking and the build up and all that that goes into it, but watch the outcome, watch how the guys hug each other and go out there and show each other respect, watch how they talk about their opponent after the fight—that’s martial arts to a T—respect and discipline. Most of the fighters out there were kids that were getting bullied and had a passion for the sport and found out they loved competition. This sport has helped me so much getting over obstacles in life and I’d never go out there and try to start a street fight—I never have that mentality. I do it for the art and the one-on-one competition. I wish more people would pay attention to the outcome and see the respect that fighters do have.

What is your philosophy as a coach?

My philosophy as a coach is, “Performance over winning and losing”—make sure you go in there and give it your all. If you worry about performance and don’t worry about winning and losing, you’re usually going to walk away with a championship. I like to go with the round-by-round metaphor—plan on winning each round that is there—don’t worry about the 10th round because you’re looking into the future, don’t worry about winning the fight—focus on the present and if you’re really focused on winning that round, then those rounds start to add up and all of a sudden you’re winning the fight, all of a sudden you’re winning the championship fight and it all started out step-by-step. A lot of people worry too much about looking ahead.

Justin Wren told me earlier that part of the criteria for membership at your gym is based heavily on character. Why do you put such an emphasis on having such high character guys in your gym?

My dad told me a long time ago when I got in the sport, that if I was going to be in the game of boxing, he said, “I don’t want you to follow the bad part of boxing—the mafia part of the business where it’s kind of crooked.” I told him it doesn’t matter and he said it’s the only way you can succeed in that business and I told him, “Dad, I’ll succeed being the good guy.” We were sitting out on my porch last summer, and he said, “Son, I’m so proud of you. You have been so successful and you committed to being the good guy.” And that meant so much to me, because I’m so passionate about this sport and for him to say that was one of the best things that I could hear. I didn’t even realize it until he told me that, “You have still succeeded being the good guy.” I feel that is how we do things at Grudge and I feel that that is how I represent myself as a trainer and I’m so proud of the way the fighters represent themselves—as athletes and as people that I look up to. Most of the guys at the gym have steady relationships and are very successful parents, and to me, that is such an honour to be associated with.

Do you feel that your emphasis on character is unique to mixed martial arts?

I had a teacher and his philosophy towards teaching really stuck with me. I was kind of a rough kid, like I said, I was being bullied a lot and sometimes I was following the wrong path. It was hard for me to get taught by a lot of teachers—they were always talking down to me, “You’re not going to be anything. You’re a bad kid.” All of this negative talk that would really make me put a shell around myself and I wouldn’t communicate—I kind of just shut down. This teacher was able to get through to me, because for everything he’d say to me, he’d always start off with something positive. He was speaking at my same level—he wasn’t speaking above me, he wasn’t speaking down to me. That made me listen and it made me respect him, I started to succeed and I wanted to be what he saw I had. Now every time I’m working with my athletes, I’ll almost always tell them something positive.

Now that you’re in the spotlight, how important do you think it is to be a positive role-model?

I think it’s very important—it’s something that I’m going to be on a consistent basis. Being a positive role-model is something that is key for our kids that are growing up, to look up and have idols to look up to—I think it’s huge, I think it’s really, really big. I just started an organization, www.donatingforkids.org and if anybody wants to be a part of helping kids out, my goal is to get a sports camp out in the mountains for kids that don’t have parents, kids that are living a rough lifestyle, kids who are being bullied. We’re in the process right now of raising money—our goal is three million—to be able to put housing and sports camp out there to see if we can help change their lives for the better.

Do you feel that there are enough positive role-models in the sport?

Yeah, I do. There are so many positive role-models, but a lot of them get into their daily job where it’s a lot of work—with all of the appearances that they have to do for their sponsoring companies, it’s a lot of work. Whether it’s for the UFC or Strikeforce, it’s an ongoing job and it takes a lot of time, but I do feel that there are a lot of positive role models. I’d like to see more of them getting out there into the public eye and donating their time or donating their stardom to help out organizations, but there are a lot. I do see guys out there all the time who are out there helping out, and I respect that so much.

How important is it for you to give back to the community?

It’s huge. It’s so important for me to give back to the community ... I’m telling you, it doesn’t take a lot of money—sometimes it just takes time. We donated 26 turkeys for Thanksgiving, the Toys-For-Tots that we did—I can’t even explain how many toys we got that people from our gym donated—that we were able to give to kids. That’s the funnest thing for me, to give, to give back and I’m telling you, there’s no better feeling than being able to do that. That’s why I train professional athletes—to give my knowledge to these guys and see their hand raised feels so darn good.

What do you think is in Grudge’s future?

I think the gym is just getting started. When Grudge opened up and hired me as the head trainer—that was like 15 months ago—and the amount of publicity that the gym has got, the amount of wins that we’ve got, and the success that we’ve had with the fighters that we’ve brought on board—if that happened in one year, I can only imagine what is going to happen in five or 10 years from now. I really feel that Grudge will be the top training facility in the world in the near future and I feel that it is very, very close to that already.

What does the future hold for Trevor Wittman?

I don’t know. I’m taking it step-by-step and enjoying every moment. I feel that I’ve accomplished the goals that I’ve set, and I think my next goal is to have the heavyweight championship. I think that’s the highest achievement you can get—at least it was in the boxing world—to have a heavyweight world champion. I’ve had a world champion in every combat sport—whether it was boxing, kick boxing, mixed martial arts and my next goal is to have the heavyweight championship, so let’s see if I can get big Shane Carwin or Brendan Schaub to go out there and get that heavyweight title. As for everything else, I’m just living day-by-day and enjoying the ride.