Early-morning jogs, strict diets and punishing workouts are par for the course when you are a professional athlete. But what about the attorney, salesman or student who has a relentless passion for a particular sport? We’re not talking about your typical weekend warrior, but the hard-core athlete driven by something deeper than a desire to have fun or shed pounds.

Matt Rossini

A fractured foot, a torn ligament, a chipped tailbone and three slipped discs that required surgery — just a few injuries Matt Rossini has sustained over the past four years as a competitive mixed martial arts fighter.

“If you’re not willing to be beat up every day, it’s not for you,” he says. “You’re going to get hurt. It’s just part of the game.”

Even the latest damage, a fractured wrist, hasn’t kept Rossini from the cage. Next month, he’ll travel to Austin to compete in a Sambo tournament, a wrestling combination that uses lower-body submission techniques like leg and ankle locks.

MMA combines all types of martial arts, and each fighter enters the combat sport with a strength. Rossini, 35, came from a Brazilian jujitsu background, and then started honing his skills in kickboxing and other styles. He trains nine times a week at Guy Mezger’s Combat Sports Club in Addison and maintains a strict diet with a nutritionist’s help.

“It’s very intense. You have to be extremely dedicated. It’s like a second full-time job.”

And this fighter’s day job?

“I’m the world’s toughest financial adviser,” he says.

Even as a kid, Rossini was impulsive and adventurous.

“I was always the first to jump off the roof,” he says. “I was always addicted to adrenaline.

But at a trim 135 pounds, he has never been a bully, a common misconception about MMA fighters.

“I’m a really calm person by nature. The ultimate goal is to win. Everyone thinks you have to be a big guy.”

Rossini plans to compete in a few more fights this year. Also a coach and a manager, he wants to build up others as the fighter behind the fighter.

“My strongest focus is going to be helping these guys accomplish their dreams.”

Gerry Mecca

Beyond the red dirt on the baseball diamond, most spectators may not even notice Gerry Mecca’s swift moves as he protects right field, anticipating plays, silently communicating with the infielders, and keeping the opposing player’s single from turning into a double or triple.

“There’s this ebb and flow,” Mecca says. “There’s this kind of dance.”

He’s been part of the North Texas Men’s Senior Baseball League since 1992, playing for the Dallas Blue Stars, which has ranked first place in its division for much of this season.

“It’s kind of like major league baseball for amateurs,” he says.

And some of his teammates are half his age.

“I’m 50, and I’m playing with 25-and-older kids. You get old. So, I’m relegated to the outfield. They all give me a bit of a hard time.”

Mecca still hits the gym for 6 a.m. workouts three days a week, but since age 37, he’s had his share of injuries that resulted in surgery — two each on his knee and shoulder, and one on a finger.

“All ratcheting me down from what I’m used to,” he says. “I used to have a cannon. I could throw the ball from home plate to center field.”

He has been on and off the baseball field since age 8, growing up in Haddonfield, N.J., and continuing through high school. Not a year has gone by that he hasn’t played in some capacity, and he says that’s why he still can. He also has a wife and kids, plus a career to juggle as the vice president of IT for the Dr Pepper Snapple Group, overseeing the company’s technical capabilities. He rarely arrives home before 7 p.m. But at the end of the day, he says, it’s family first.

Even if it means sitting out of a game because his mother-in-law is in town.

“I got a lot of hell from the guys,” he says, laughing.

Mecca says the national MSBL is one of the most competitive, high-quality leagues in the Dallas area. This month, he’ll become the commissioner for the North Texas league.

“I feel like I’m part of something,” he says. “Not just a bunch of knuckleheads getting together to play ball. I’ve been playing ball my whole life. If I didn’t do it, a part of me would be gone.”

Justin Sanuy

Justin Sanuy & Jim Whitfill

For Justin Sanuy, bodybuilding is more than a sport.

“I think bodybuilding

is an art,” he says. “You’re trying to sculpt your body into something proportional. It looks like a work of art if it’s done the right way.”

Sanuy, 28, has been a personal trainer at Gold’s Gym on Arapaho for a year, but for the past five years, he has been training to become a professional bodybuilder. In just three months, Sanuy went from 260 to 210 pounds. That’s the ritual when preparing for a show — bulk up and then cut down.

“That’s where this sport’s not for the weak-hearted.”

Jim Whitfill

He recently placed sixth out of 20 in his weight class at the Lone Star Classic, and he’s working toward April’s Ronnie Coleman Classic, which will decide if he makes it to a national competition.

While Sanuy is just starting, his coworker, 57-year-old Jim Whitfill, has seen the sport evolve since he began competing in the 1970s — when most of today’s workout equipment didn’t exist.

“It was all barbells and dumbbells,” Whitfill says. “The bodybuilding movement as we know it today was very much in its infancy.”

Whitfill was already 38 when he entered the scene, and at age 43, everything changed.

“I was doing some heavy lifting on a Sunday,” he says. “And I felt a pop in my back.”

His doctor confirmed that Whitfill had early onset osteoporosis sped up by his extreme lifestyle. So he left bodybuilding for eight years, and continued his day job at the time as a music teacher in Rockwall.

One day, his students saw some photographs of their teacher from his glory days. They challenged him, betting he couldn’t look like that again. Whitfill set out to prove them wrong and has been competing in shows ever since. His passion for bodybuilding goes beyond the competition itself.

“By then, it’s show business down to the music you select to the bathing suit you wear. For me, I think it was the idea of being the best that a body can be. I can honestly say that the ride has been very interesting. How long the ride will last, I don’t know.”

Being a bodybuilder means training for at least three hours a day, weighing out food, taking supplements — and no drinking or cheat meals. At least that’s Sanuy’s foolproof regimen.

“I don’t leave any margin for error. It’s an addiction. It’s a glorification. You work so hard to show off what you do.”

Even though it lasts for just one day at the show.

“I am this way because I make myself this way.”