When I was growing up, I always wanted to do well in boxing. I wanted to look after my parents, and I wanted to look after myself.

I feel good about my first professional fight. I was ready for it, and it was a good win for me.

I was upset about not going to the Olympics. It was a dream of mine, and I'd been working at it for a long time. But I've turned pro now; it's in the past, and there's nothing I can do about it.

With the overhand right in the past, I always got caught. My chin was up, and my shoulder wasn't where it was supposed to be, covering my chin.

Words have power. The things that you say to yourself as a parent - the things that you say maybe even just one time to your children - they take it, and they take it into their real world and into their life and beyond.

I haven't had a stationary home since going with the circus, but since my parents lived in Lafayette about 25 years ago and my sister lives here now, I always claim it as home.

Parents don't want their kids to be nerdy.

You wouldn't go to a hospital, you wouldn't go to a law firm where the doctors and lawyers were not retained on merit: where they all had tenure regardless of competence. Parents feel the same way about schools that they send their children to.