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I have just been asked to nominate a young person for a Cherwell sports award. There are so many people who are talented at Spit n Sawdust. We had classy boxers like Imtiaz Khandokar, smooth skillfull boxers like Wesley Avery, cool boxers like Ayaz Muhammed and lots more who have come and gone as well as up and coming boxers like Ashley Crane, Max Kirkwood and DJ Patterson. But purely down to his hard work and dedication to the sport I had to choose Robert James Evans.
Although there has been many success stories at Spit n Sawdust I feel the person who has developed as a young person is most is Robert Evans.
I met Rob outside McDonalds just over 5 years ago when he was hanging around outside with his mates. I suggested to him that he join my boxing club. When I first met Rob he was just bumming around the streets, getting into scrapes with the law, smoking, including recreational drugs, drinking, which caused him to get in fights in the streets and he had no job and seemingly no ambition. His positive life change in my opinion was joining the boxing club.Since joining the boxing club Rob has enjoyed success at every level of boxing. In his 1st year he entered and won The National Novice Amateur Boxing Association for boxers who had less then 10 bouts. Although Rob had only 2 fights before entering he won the national title at cruiserweight that year and went on to win the Intermediate National Championships the following year (Under 20 bouts) and then again after only 13 bouts entered the all England National Championships winning the championship Live on Sky Television.
Whilst all this was happening Rob was tee total. In fact after his 1st fight I took him out for a drink to celebrate and instead of getting drunk he had a soft drink. That was it he said and he trained everyday of the week for 6 hours a day. He never had time to get in trouble because he was always with me at the gym.
During these early times of him boxing many of the friends he used to 'hang with' were featuring on the front pages of the local papers for crimes and ended up in prison whilst he was making the back pages of the local papers for his acheivements in boxing. After reaching the highest level you can acheive as an amateur boxer Rob was then spotted by a photographer via facebook and through him met an agent got signed up as a model and went to Paris (the 1st time he had ever been abroad) and started modelling. He is now recognised as one of the worlds leading Supermodels and spends much of his time travelling the world on photoshoots with other 'supermodel' including Naomi Cambell. He is partying with the likes of Lennox Lewis and Beyonce on roof top parties in New York.
He recently was part of a campaign (through modelling) that was helping the victims of the tragedy in Japan. He also visited his old school, Warriner in Bloxham to let the children know where he was from and how hard work can get you anything you want in life. He is now having acting lessons and is in line to become an actor in the States. They say he is the biggest ever model (in size and popularity) to ever come out of England.
Rob now features on the front and back papers of Magazines and also on Billboards all over the world as the new face of CK One
The reason that I nominated Rob for this award is because he proved that hard work can result in great things. Everybody can acheive greatness as long as they believe they can and are prepared to put te work in. He refuses to be 2nd best at anything and this is why he has achieved so much. I remember Muhammad Ali saying whatever he chose to do in life he would have been the best in the world at it. Virtually everybody has the opportunity to be the best, most of us don't want it enough or are not prepared to work for it. Which is ok as long as we don't spend thed the rest of our lives thinking 'if only?'