Take a rural school setting, one athlete and add a dash of water with maybe a hint of chlorine and the product is a chemistry major in Jersey.
Kyle Jackson is back at his Millarville area home after completing his first year at Ramapo College in New Jersey, where he also competed on the school’s swimming team.
He proved the importance of being a student athlete — it was his grades at Oilfields High School in Black Diamond that got him the scholarship to Ramapo not necessarily his swimming.
“I signed up with a recruiting website and they sent my contact out to a bunch of different schools,” the 19-year-old Jackson said. “I got the scholarship for academics, not for swimming, I went out for swimming and I was on the team.”
Jackson just completed his freshman year and finished with a 3.0 GPA. He is majoring in chemistry.
He also made a reaction with the swim team.
“The main focus of the scholarship was academics, but it was also important that I got to swim,” Jackson said. “I had some personal best times. A 2:01.49 for the 200-yard butterfly and 55.2 for the 100-yard butterfly.
“Those were my two best races over the course of the season.”
Jackson said he was in the upper middle half of the swimmers on the Ramapo Roadrunners swim team.
“I really had no idea what to expect (going into the season),” Jackson said. “I was just glad to be able to go to school and swim at the same time.”
Ramapo College is in NCAA Division III, which held its championships in late March.
Although Jackson didn’t qualify for the championships, it’ a goal that ranks right up there like hydrogen on the periodic table — no. 1.
“The amount of kids who make the NCAA finals are very, very few,” Jackson said. “I still made finals at a lot of meets I went to, so I still did fairly well.
“My goals next year are to keep improving and to hopefully make it to nationals.”
Jackson credits his experience with Foothills Stingrays coach Todd Melton for getting him to the college level. Jackson was with the Stingrays until going into his Grade 11 year.
“He (Melton) got me interested in wanting to swim really fast,” Jackson said. “He made it much more serious for me — to set goals and try to meet them.”
Although you wouldn’t believe it from a state that produced the Boss, Tony Soprano, the Ramapo College feel isn’t that much different from Oilfields High School.
“I had really good teachers at Oilfields and I was pretty prepared when I got to college,” Jackson said. “One of the main reasons I took chemistry was because of my high school Chem teacher (Carolyn Paquette) and Mr. (Chris) Hughes, my math and physic teacher was the other one that helped me a lot… because the classrooms are so small (at Ramapo) it wasn’t all that different from Oilfields.”
However, there is a difference to visiting the big city than when he lives in Millarville for the summer.
“It’s a very interesting change of scenery being able to go to New York City and explore that way,” Jackson said.
