OSG Member Spotlight: Jake Martinez

Jake Martinez, a senior at Licking Valley High School, is the OSG Member spotlight for the month of November.  Jake has been training with Coach Myers at OSG since his freshman year of high school, and he recently accepted an athletic scholarship to Kent State University.  Jake was a state finalist last year and enters his senior season on the mats ranked #1 in Ohio (D2 138lbs) and currently sits at #18 nationally at 138lbs. 

Hear what Jake has to say about his time at OSG, his future plans, and what it means to be the first person in his family to attend college:

What brought you to OSG?

I came to old school gym because my father and I had been hearing about it through wrestlers that we trained with. After freshman year I knew I need something more than what I had and I knew I needed to lift and get stronger.  With Coach Myers resume it was an obvious choice who to go to. 

How has training here changed your mentality?

The old school gym definitely changed my mentality! Walking in I just thought lifting weights was something to do just to get stronger but I quickly found out at this gym it was different.  Training at OSG showed me that it takes as much dedication to get stronger, as it takes to get better at wrestling. It taught me how to push myself when no one is looking which I think is the best thing an athlete or anyone in life can learn. 

What is your favorite thing about the gym?

The people there care about each other and work together to achieve their goals.  The atmosphere is intense and everyone had their own goals to reach.  It doesn’t matter if you are competing against each other, you are a team in here and everyone helps each other get better and stronger.

What are your goals going forward?

Earning a scholarship in wrestling is hard to describe. There are so many wrestlers that have worked as hard or even harder than I have to obtain a scholarship from a Division 1 college wrestling program. This has been a dream of mine since I was a little kid and now it's all happening, so I don't plan on wasting a moment of this opportunity!  Honestly all I can say is that I'm truest honored and blessed to be where I am today.  I owe it all to my parents, who never gave up on me when I quit on myself and made every sacrifice you can imagine so that I could get the training and the wrestling experience that I have. I owe it to my coaches who work with me constantly pushing me to get better and believing that I could be one of the few kids that get a wrestling scholarship. Also all of my family and friends who have supported me and gave me the courage and the drive to be the young man, and wrestler I am today. Being the first person in my family to attend college is an amazing feeling of achievement. My parents have always been on me and pushing me to keep good grades. To actually be able to give back to them and show them that all of their support is paying off feels incredible. I plan to major in pre-med in college. I've always been one to help people and I want to be in a position to help people who desperately need it.  I plan to go to college, then medical school with the goal of becoming an ER surgeon and help as many people as I possible can. But with all of this being said, I still have one goal left to achieve before college, and that is to win a state title this year!