Jacob Bohlken of Smithville High School is The Star’s Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year

The fourth-grade football season concluded on a fall afternoon, and before long, a young Jacob Bohlken commenced a countdown to baseball season — an annual event for a kid whose bedroom was a shrine to America’s pastime.

But there was a slight hiccup in the plans.

The long wait. It never took much for Bohlken to go stir-crazy. A winter without sports would qualify.

“He’s always had to have a full schedule, so when football ended, he was just kind of like, ‘What am I going to do now?’” his mother, Michelle says.

Eight years ago, Bohlken stumbled onto a solution.

Wrestling.

The sport offered him an avenue to best friendships. To a high school state championship. To a Division I college scholarship.

But to categorize Bohlken, who just graduated from Smithville High School, as strictly a wrestler would sell his accomplishments far too short. He was a four-year letterman in baseball and football, too.

Bohlken stepped onto the Missouri campus last weekend in Columbia as a Division I wrestler, a pre-med student and a Bright Flight scholarship recipient.

He is also The Star’s Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year.

When Bohlken was 13 years old, he rushed into the living room to ask his father for a favor. Matt Bohlken obliged, and soon thereafter, he found himself on the computer, researching colleges, per Jacob’s request.

The list was exclusive — Jacob wanted to find universities with strong athletic programs and equally reputable pre-med programs.

“For a long time, he’s had something in mind that he wants to do, and when he puts something in his mind like that, he doesn’t really stray from it,” Matt says.

The ultimate dream was to become an orthopedic surgeon. Still is, actually.

Bohlken spent the past four years obtaining a head start. He took seven yearlong college courses for credit.

He graduated high school last month with a 3.86 grade-point average on a non-weighted scale. He once got a B. Just once. As a sophomore, he scored a 31 on his ACT, which placed him in the state’s Bright Flight program.

All while taking part in three varsity sports.

And so much more. He was the Smithville High School senior class president, the Special Olympics committee co-chair, a youth minister, a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and part of the National English Honor Society.

Asked how he balanced the schedule, Bohlken quipped, “What do you mean? I have a planner.”

His wrestling coach, Taylor Middleton, who also serves as his study hall teacher, jokes that Bohlken is one of the few students who actually spends the period catching up on his studies — a trait all of his teachers noticed, too.

“He will come in before school and ask me about something, if that’s what it takes,” says Shawn Logan, who taught Bohlken in three math classes. “It bothers him if he doesn’t understand something, and he’s willing to go above and beyond to figure it out.”

Bohlken was a natural in his first wrestling season. He made it to the state championship match that winter, before losing to Levi Marlay.

He wrestled in the heaviest weight classes throughout his childhood and usually towered over his classmates. In fact, after his first week of football practice as a first-grader, the coaches accidentally placed him with the third- and fourth-grade team, assuming he was older. He spent two years there.

The size made him an imposing figure on the pitcher’s mound, too. As a junior, he pitched Smithville to its first state tournament semifinal appearance since 1979, holding Boonville to one run in the Missouri Class 4 quarterfinals.

Therein lied his passion. His bedroom walls are a mural of a baseball field, with a baseball serving as the light and two bats forming the fan.

If he’s being candid, Bohlken actually would have preferred a baseball college scholarship, but the offer never came.

“It hurts a little bit, but at the same time, I’m really motivated and really excited for the opportunity I have,” Bohlken says. “I still don’t know where my ceiling is with wrestling.”

The potential is evident. Bohlken was a four-time Missouri Class 2 wrestling state qualifier and two-time state finalist.

As a senior, he claimed his first state championship — in the heavyweight division — while helping Smithville win its first-ever team championship.

His state-final opponent? Levi Marlay.

Smithville wrestling coach Middleton has a son, Haze, who is 8 years old. As part of his second-grade class, Haze was required to write a story last fall.

He wrote about Bohlken.

“My favorite athlete in the world is Jacob Bohlken,” it reads, before predicting that Bohlken would win a state title — and beat Marlay in the final.

Bohlken laminated the story and hung it up for his graduation party last month.

“If you were to pick a kid you wanted your son to look up to, it would be easy to say Jacob,” Middleton said. “He epitomizes what we want to be as a wrestling program, but also epitomizes how I want my kids to act.”

Bohlken has made a habit of spending time with younger kids — whether it be through his youth ministry or a trading card program in which he visits elementary schools and advises them to practice a life without drugs and alcohol.

These moments, Bohlken says, are the ones he cherishes the most. More than wrestling, baseball or football. They offer an opportunity to feel as if he’s making a difference.

Just like the career he mapped out when he was 13 years old.

“That’s why I want to be an orthopedic surgeon. It’s a way to keep me around sports after I’m done playing, and you’re helping people at the same time,” he says.

“How can you not like that?”

This story was originally published June 11, 2016 at 9:29 PM with the headline "Jacob Bohlken of Smithville High School is The Star’s Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year."