Jacob Tomlin and the path to unparalell
Jacob Tomlin had huge goals bouncing around on the inside of his head when he took the mat for his first season at Colton High School. Tomlin wanted to be a history maker; someone who squeezed his name into the record books with gaudy achievements like an undefeated high school career and becoming a four-time state champion. The young man wanted to be unprecedented and his track record up to that point showed that it was possible.
He had accrued various youth championships, he was the middle school state champion and he won the Oregon Greco title two times. If anyone could do it than it was this kid coming out of Colton.
It was not meant to be.
Tomlin slipped up in the semifinals of the state tournament his freshman year in an overtime match where he was called for an illegal move after he slammed a kid too hard.
“That devastated me,” Tomlin says of the loss. “All of my dreams of high school were pretty much shattered. I wanted to be undefeated through high school and win four state titles.”
Tomlin went to bed the night after the loss dejected.
“It was tough, I had to wrestle the next day too, and I was five or six pounds overweight and I just wanted quit and say ‘I am done, I am not going to wrestle any more,’ but I had to go home and run that weight off and wrestle the next day,” Tomlin recalls. “It was really difficult for me but I just thought, ‘it is not going to do me any good to throw the towel in now so I might as well make the best of it if I can.”
Tomlin certainly did. In the rest of his high school career he racked up three state titles and only was defeated twice more, once when he was sick. However the most telling fact about Tomlin is that the night after he lost and went home feeling crestfallen after his dreams for his high school career were broken, he got on the treadmill, lost the weight he needed to and came back to the meet prepared and he took home third place.
His self motivation, his willingness to roll with the punches, is something that has been with Jacob his whole life and other people have taken notice. This year Tomlin was named the 3A state wrestler of the year, an award voted on by coaches from all classifications in the state, and he was named to the Oregon Wrestling All-Star team. In the next month he will travel down to California to face the state champion there for bragging rights.
All of his accomplishments speak to Tomlin’s inner drive.
“Jacob is a young man that has a very high character and is very self-motivated,” Jacob’s father, Dennis Tomlin says.
When Jacob started wrestling at a young age, he was the one pushing to improve his skills, not his father or a coach. And he worked hard, even when his wrestling career did not start with the same dominance that it ended with.
“He initiated it at first, he said that he wanted to try it and just like most kids just starting off, he went out there and he got thumped on pretty good,” Dennis says. “He had pretty limited success, but then he started learning more and started to really love it and he would start asking me, ‘hey dad, can we go to practice tonight?’ And I would get in the car and drive him over to Canby and sit for three hours and watch him practice.”
And so began Jacob’s love for the sport of wrestling and he quickly knew that he wanted to take it to the next level.
“I think probably around fifth grade was when I started to get really serious about it,” Tomlin said. “I kind of realized that if I wanted to take it to the next level I kind of had to do something more.”
So Jacob started pouring in his time and effort to the pursuit of wrestling. He and his dad drove all over, from Seattle to Ashland, to compete in matches. This meant that Jacob was spending many hours with his father, growing closer and cementing the strong bond that the two share today.
“We spent so much time together,” Dennis says. “There were many matches where his was the last one of the night and we would have to be there till late in the night.”
Jacob is someone who values his family greatly, and they have become some of his biggest backers in return.
“It is really nice to have support no matter what I do,” Jacob says. “They support me in everything. It is great because it is like having a traveling fan club.”
Jacob’s mother is April, who works at Molalla elementary school, and he is the middle child of five in the Tomlin household. He has two younger sisters, Amanda, 13, and Laura, 16, and an older sister Sarah, 19 and a brother Justin, 25. His sister is especially passionate about her younger brother’s exploits on the mat and when he lost in the semi’s his freshman year, she took it almost hard as he did.
“I think that my older sister almost had a nervous breakdown,” Tomlin says. “I think that she was more upset than I was. It was pretty intense.”
Tomlin has reshaped the face of Colton wrestling and will go down in history as the first three-time state champion from the high school; it is the type of achievement that will have reverberations in the Colton community and mat room for years to come.
“I think that it is great for the program to have super-good wrestlers in the mat room because everyone around them gets better,” Colton wrestling coach Kerry Benthin says of Jacob’s presence on the team.
Over the years Jacob has refined his techniques and has gotten to the point where wrestlers will avoid the weight class that he intends to compete in.
“Jacob is above everybody, he really dominates a match,” Benthin says. “He is at a different level than most kids.”
During his senior season Jacob almost saw his revised dreams of three state titles evaporate as he was knocked down by an intense bout of mononucleosis.
“The low point in my high school career was probably this year when I had mono and I was out for quite a bit,” Jacob said.
The doctors were not even sure if Jacob would be able to get back to the mat at all during his senior season.
“When I found out that he was diagnosed with mono I thought ‘maybe it is a bad diagnosis, maybe we should get a second opinion,’” Dennis recalls. “He was bedridden for quite sometime because he had a pretty intense case. It was tough for me because I saw him dealing with the fact that he might not be able to accomplish what he set out to do.”
Jacob was able to come back strong and down the sickness quicker than some might have expected.
“I wasn’t surprised that he came back from it,” Dennis says. “If anyone was going to come back from that, he was going to come back from it.”
Jacob’s next step is to wrestle at the collegiate level and that brings up some difficult decisions.
“I have been talking a lot to my dad and some other people about what I want to do and where I want to go,” Jacob says. “I am stuck on the fence between a Division 1 school and a community college. I think that a community college is going to be a lot easier of a transition for me. I defiantly think that it is a huge decision. I am really confused about it I guess. It is such a big decision.”
Tomlin wants to continue to be involved in wrestling after his own competition days are over. He wants to be a coach at some level and either work as a high school teacher or in forest management.
Those huge goals that were bouncing around in Jacob Tomlin’s head when he was just a freshman have not come into reality in exactly the way that Jacob had wanted but they are not tarnished. Jacob has set records and has a bright future ahead of him and now he can sit back and enjoy the rest of his senior year and be satisfied with a stellar high school wrestling career.
“When you are done and you look back and it is kind of like your masterpiece,” Jacob says. “You have got to be happy.”
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
Jacob Tomlin had huge goals bouncing around on the inside of his head when he took the mat for his first season at Colton High School. Tomlin wanted to be a history maker; someone who squeezed his name into the record books with gaudy achievements like an undefeated high school career and becoming a four-time state champion. The young man wanted to be unprecedented and his track record up to that point showed that it was possible.
He had accrued various youth championships, he was the middle school state champion and he won the Oregon Greco title two times. If anyone could do it than it was this kid coming out of Colton.
It was not meant to be.
Tomlin slipped up in the semifinals of the state tournament his freshman year in an overtime match where he was called for an illegal move after he slammed a kid too hard.
“That devastated me,” Tomlin says of the loss. “All of my dreams of high school were pretty much shattered. I wanted to be undefeated through high school and win four state titles.”
Tomlin went to bed the night after the loss dejected.
“It was tough, I had to wrestle the next day too, and I was five or six pounds overweight and I just wanted quit and say ‘I am done, I am not going to wrestle any more,’ but I had to go home and run that weight off and wrestle the next day,” Tomlin recalls. “It was really difficult for me but I just thought, ‘it is not going to do me any good to throw the towel in now so I might as well make the best of it if I can.”
Tomlin certainly did. In the rest of his high school career he racked up three state titles and only was defeated twice more, once when he was sick. However the most telling fact about Tomlin is that the night after he lost and went home feeling crestfallen after his dreams for his high school career were broken, he got on the treadmill, lost the weight he needed to and came back to the meet prepared and he took home third place.
His self motivation, his willingness to roll with the punches, is something that has been with Jacob his whole life and other people have taken notice. This year Tomlin was named the 3A state wrestler of the year, an award voted on by coaches from all classifications in the state, and he was named to the Oregon Wrestling All-Star team. In the next month he will travel down to California to face the state champion there for bragging rights.
All of his accomplishments speak to Tomlin’s inner drive.
“Jacob is a young man that has a very high character and is very self-motivated,” Jacob’s father, Dennis Tomlin says.
When Jacob started wrestling at a young age, he was the one pushing to improve his skills, not his father or a coach. And he worked hard, even when his wrestling career did not start with the same dominance that it ended with.
“He initiated it at first, he said that he wanted to try it and just like most kids just starting off, he went out there and he got thumped on pretty good,” Dennis says. “He had pretty limited success, but then he started learning more and started to really love it and he would start asking me, ‘hey dad, can we go to practice tonight?’ And I would get in the car and drive him over to Canby and sit for three hours and watch him practice.”
And so began Jacob’s love for the sport of wrestling and he quickly knew that he wanted to take it to the next level.
“I think probably around fifth grade was when I started to get really serious about it,” Tomlin said. “I kind of realized that if I wanted to take it to the next level I kind of had to do something more.”
So Jacob started pouring in his time and effort to the pursuit of wrestling. He and his dad drove all over, from Seattle to Ashland, to compete in matches. This meant that Jacob was spending many hours with his father, growing closer and cementing the strong bond that the two share today.
“We spent so much time together,” Dennis says. “There were many matches where his was the last one of the night and we would have to be there till late in the night.”
Jacob is someone who values his family greatly, and they have become some of his biggest backers in return.
“It is really nice to have support no matter what I do,” Jacob says. “They support me in everything. It is great because it is like having a traveling fan club.”
Jacob’s mother is April, who works at Molalla elementary school, and he is the middle child of five in the Tomlin household. He has two younger sisters, Amanda, 13, and Laura, 16, and an older sister Sarah, 19 and a brother Justin, 25. His sister is especially passionate about her younger brother’s exploits on the mat and when he lost in the semi’s his freshman year, she took it almost hard as he did.
“I think that my older sister almost had a nervous breakdown,” Tomlin says. “I think that she was more upset than I was. It was pretty intense.”
Tomlin has reshaped the face of Colton wrestling and will go down in history as the first three-time state champion from the high school; it is the type of achievement that will have reverberations in the Colton community and mat room for years to come.
“I think that it is great for the program to have super-good wrestlers in the mat room because everyone around them gets better,” Colton wrestling coach Kerry Benthin says of Jacob’s presence on the team.
Over the years Jacob has refined his techniques and has gotten to the point where wrestlers will avoid the weight class that he intends to compete in.
“Jacob is above everybody, he really dominates a match,” Benthin says. “He is at a different level than most kids.”
During his senior season Jacob almost saw his revised dreams of three state titles evaporate as he was knocked down by an intense bout of mononucleosis.
“The low point in my high school career was probably this year when I had mono and I was out for quite a bit,” Jacob said.
The doctors were not even sure if Jacob would be able to get back to the mat at all during his senior season.
“When I found out that he was diagnosed with mono I thought ‘maybe it is a bad diagnosis, maybe we should get a second opinion,’” Dennis recalls. “He was bedridden for quite sometime because he had a pretty intense case. It was tough for me because I saw him dealing with the fact that he might not be able to accomplish what he set out to do.”
Jacob was able to come back strong and down the sickness quicker than some might have expected.
“I wasn’t surprised that he came back from it,” Dennis says. “If anyone was going to come back from that, he was going to come back from it.”
Jacob’s next step is to wrestle at the collegiate level and that brings up some difficult decisions.
“I have been talking a lot to my dad and some other people about what I want to do and where I want to go,” Jacob says. “I am stuck on the fence between a Division 1 school and a community college. I think that a community college is going to be a lot easier of a transition for me. I defiantly think that it is a huge decision. I am really confused about it I guess. It is such a big decision.”
Tomlin wants to continue to be involved in wrestling after his own competition days are over. He wants to be a coach at some level and either work as a high school teacher or in forest management.
Those huge goals that were bouncing around in Jacob Tomlin’s head when he was just a freshman have not come into reality in exactly the way that Jacob had wanted but they are not tarnished. Jacob has set records and has a bright future ahead of him and now he can sit back and enjoy the rest of his senior year and be satisfied with a stellar high school wrestling career.
“When you are done and you look back and it is kind of like your masterpiece,” Jacob says. “You have got to be happy.”
The love you give comes back in the end.
--------------------------------------------------------
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