Jonathan Hamm is an amateur boxer and a former professional football player. Hamm is originally from Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

 but now lives and trains in Saint Paul

Saint Paul, Minnesota

Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...

, Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

.

Football

Hamm played football for Clark-Atlanta University and then signed a professional contract with the New Orleans Saints

New Orleans Saints

The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans, Louisiana. They are members of the South Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League ....

 in 2007. Following a hamstring injury, however, Hamm was cut by the Saints and subsequently played for two years for the New York Dragons

New York Dragons

The New York Dragons were an Arena Football League team based in the New York metropolitan area. The team was founded in as the original incarnation of the Iowa Barnstormers, and relocated to New York in . They played in New York until 2008, when the league folded...

 of the Arena Football League

Arena Football League

The Arena Football League is the highest level of professional indoor American football in the United States. It is currently the second longest running professional football league in the United States, after the National Football League. It was founded in 1987 by Jim Foster...

.

Acting

Hamm had modeled and appeared in television commercials by 2007, and was discovered by Robert Siegel

Robert Siegel

Robert Siegel is an American radio journalist best known as host of the National Public Radio evening news broadcast All Things Considered.-Career:...

 when Siegel was casting for the independent film, Big Fan

Big Fan

Big Fan is a 2009 independent drama film written and directed by Robert D. Siegel, and starring Patton Oswalt, Kevin Corrigan, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Michael Rapaport, and Scott Ferrall. The story revolves around the bleak yet amiable life of the self-described "world’s biggest New York Giants fan",...

. That film was well-received by critics, but Hamm didn't believe that he had a future in acting, and abandoned the profession.

Boxing

Hamm was recruited to become a boxer in 2009 by All-American Heavyweights, an organization that develops athletes from other sports into boxers. Through All-American Heavyweights Hamm was matched with Johnny Johnson, the proprietor of the Rice Street Gym in St Paul. Johnson trained Hamm until a motorcycle accident curttailed Johnson's involvement, so Adonis Frazier of Circle of Discipline Boxing Gym in Minneapolis is filling in while Johnson recovers. In 2011 Hamm qualified for the US Olympic Trials by winning the USA Boxing championship.