Sophomore Blake Jacobs never knew he had so much potential in wrestling until his dad decided it was time he tried something new.

Wrestling wasn’t originally Blake’s first choice when it came to sports. He had to try a multitude of sports before he found the perfect one to push him towards his full potential.

“I tried football for two years,” Blake said. “Football didn’t work out nor was I very good at it. I tried a few other sports, [all of which] my dad thought were too easy. He took me out of the classes and suggested I tried wrestling.”

He didn’t expect to find much motivation in wrestling until he found out how highly he could excel.

“Since I had no other sports to do, my dad told me to try wrestling, and I did,” Blake said. “I was pretty good in the beginning but I started to fade away because I didn’t take it seriously at all. I just stuck with what I knew from instinct. I was very exhausted after every match; eventually, I learned that just instincts weren’t going to cut it so I started to [learn] technique and take notes from videos to learn from them.”

Blake was made to join wrestling due to how well his brother excelled; because of that, his dad believed that Blake had untapped potential.

“I was forced into it, obviously, because my brother got recruited by Brad Anderson when he was in second grade,” Blake said. 

Because of his older brother’s involvement in the sport, Blake has been learning to wrestle since second grade. He didn’t take it seriously until around eighth grade when he decided it was time to take his fitness seriously.

He didn’t originally have this much determination when it came to any kind of fitness. One significant moment in his life made him realize that he had to start taking his fitness seriously. 

“I was lined up with the pull-up bar for the pull-up contest and I managed to get zero pull-ups even with two attempts,” Blake said. “That was the moment I knew I had to turn my life around [physically], so I told my dad, ‘hey, we have to go to the gym,’ and he was down for it. So I went to the gym almost every day after that for about a year. I started seeing results and then I got really motivated.”

Blake surpasses everyone’s expectations when it comes to his strength. As a result of him keeping a solid workout routine, he was one of the few freshmen on the varsity team just last year.

“I tried to work out or go to wrestling practice at least every other day,” Blake said. “After that, I really got into lifting. I started to work on my entire body, so I got pretty serious about that. When wrestling season rolled around, I got really good. Freshman year I made varsity even though I was only 112 pounds.”

Blake doesn’t come off as a force to be reckoned with, but in reality, due to all of the training to stay fit, he and his whole family can only describe him as “a little brick.”

Throughout the journey of his wrestling experience, he knew it was time to take a big step and further his wrestling career.

“I started training with a travel team besides FHC and I wrestled in many tournaments across the country [last year],” Blake said. 

When COVID-19 came around, it didn’t deteriorate his motivation–in fact, it did the complete opposite.

“When COVID-19 hit, I decided to start using a new workout system by a former UFC fighter,” Blake said. “He trained me by showing me how to properly work out using proper technique.” 

Although Blake’s initial impression of the sport made him less than enthusiastic about trying it out, through hard work and consistent training, he was able to better himself in more than one area of his life. 

“I know it’s not the most common way of learning a new sport, but I’ve learned to love and appreciate my journey when it comes to learning and participating in wrestling,” Blake said.