Orrville Player: Smooth as Jam!

Published on: 9th February, 2010

Orrville, OH –

In a day and age when online recruiting is done by Texting, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and numerous other social marketing/media outlets, we have found one prospect that is six degrees of Bobby Knight and Smucker’s Jelly.  Below is an article that was featured on a prospect that you won’t find on any  dot-Com message boards!

Jacob Bolyard didn’t have to worry about making a name for himself at Orrville. His dad already took care of that two decades ago.

But the Red Rider senior has certainly cleared his own path as a three-year starter on the basketball team. This season, the guard is averaging 21.5 points a game for the 11-3 Riders, and if he maintains that pace through the rest of the regular season, Bolyard will become the 11th player in school history to score more than 1,000 career points.

He’ll join his dad, legendary OHS athlete Tom Bolyard, on that list, making them the first father-son duo in Wayne County to do so.

Tom Bolyard, a 1985 Orrville graduate, is considered by many to be one of the best-ever athletes in Wayne County. He was a first-team All-Ohioan as a football quarterback, earning a scholarship to Ohio State, and a standout basketball player. One spring, he decided to go out for the baseball team.

“He barely even played baseball and he was our starting shortstop one year, and a really good one,” said Orrville athletic director Kent Smith. “Tom was a natural, he was good at everything. He was just such a great athlete and a quick jumper, maybe the quickest I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s interesting — people remember Tom and how good he was, obviously, but it’s never seemed like Jake had to live up to anything.”

Now living in Bloomington, Ind., where he’s a postal worker in addition to owning his own cleaning business, Tom Bolyard has only seen his son play varsity basketball a handful of times. “That’s the only time he gets nervous, when I come and watch him,” Tom said. “He’ll try a little harder, too hard, but once he gets into the flow of the game he’s fine.”

Jacob added: “I don’t get to see him a lot during the school year, but we talk and he tells me just to go out, play my game, do all I can do and have fun.”

A starter since his sophomore year, Bolyard has developed from strictly a shooter to one of the best all-around players in the Ohio Cardinal Conference. He can still shoot it from the outside, but the OCC’s leading scorer can also get to the basket, averages over 6 rebounds a game, and 2.4 steals after leading the conference in that department as a junior.

“Everyone sees what he does in games, but we get to see it every day in practice,” said Orrville’s first-year coach Sly Slaughter. “He does some amazing things, and he has a knack for hitting shots.

“Last year he started off scoring 35 and 31 points in the first two games and made nothing but 3-pointers and layups. This summer, when I got the job, one of the first things I talked to him about was developing a mid-range jumper. He’s done that, and it’s definitely paying dividends.”

“I think I’ve improved my pull-up jumper,” Jacob said. “I didn’t shoot too many of them last year, but I worked real hard on that, and on my rebounding, too.”

Bolyard’s skills and work ethic on the court have never been questioned. The classroom, though, was a different story.

“When I’d call him and ask how school was going, he’d say ‘Fine.’ Then I found out he was struggling, but a lot of times it’s just a matter of applying yourself,” Tom said.

“Jacob’s always been a good kid, but he liked to have a lot of fun in class,” Slaughter said. “I had him as an eighth-grader, and early on he had a hard time figuring out when it was time to get serious.”

Although he had always done enough to stay academically eligible, Bolyard realized his dream of playing college basketball would remain just that — a dream — without the grades to go along with his playing ability.

“My first two years of high school, I didn’t really take studying seriously and it led to a big problem,” he said. “I’ve had to really step it up to get my GPA up. I’ve worked real hard, especially this year, and I got a decent score on my ACT. That’s helped.”

As his grades have gone up, so has the interest from college recruiters. Bolyard took a visit to Northwestern Ohio University in Lima earlier this week, while Wheeling Jesuit, another Div. II school in West Virginia, has also been in contact. Several schools from the Mid-American Conference have also started sending out feelers to the Orrville coaching staff about the 6-foot-1 guard.

“I think I can play Div. II, maybe at some smaller D-I schools like a MAC school, or maybe Robert Morris. I’m just waiting right now,” he said. “I want to find a school where I can maybe study early education. I wouldn’t mind teaching and coaching.”

Tom Bolyard left Ohio State, went to a junior college, then transferred to Indiana, where he played some quarterback and punted.

“If junior college is the answer, that might not be so bad,” Tom said of his son’s options. “You learn how to study, you get more 1-on-1 attention, and you get to play right away in most situations. I do think he’ll make a pretty good player for someone.

“The thing now is, I think he sees the bigger picture, that there’s life after high school. He snapped out of it, and a lot of schools look at how you do in your last two years anyway,” the elder Bolyard added. “The big thing is, find a way to use basketball to get an education.”

When Jacob visits his father in the summer, Tom tries to give him another form of education — on the basketball court.

“It’s the only time I play,” Tom said with a laugh. “Yeah, I can hold my own, but it’s getting harder and harder. I go down low a lot more now. But we have fun — he’s worked real hard at his game.”

Tom Bolyard is fifth on Orrville’s all-time scoring list with 1,277 points, one spot ahead of 1958 graduate Bob Knight. Jacob Bolyard, helped by a career-high 38 points in last week’s overtime victory over Northwestern, is at 901 points.

He won’t surpass his dad, but Jacob Bolyard will join him as one of the top scorers in Red Rider annals.

And, along the way, he’s become an outstanding player in his own right.

“Jacob’s friendly and personable, and he really cares about the team,” Smith said. “And, because of what he’s done the last three semesters, he’s shown tremendous improvement in the classroom.

“His best basketball is ahead of him. I think he’s got a bright future.”

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By MIKE PLANT

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