A student athlete

“I’ve always prioritized academics over my sports.”

Those are not necessarily words one would expect to come out of a kid who currently has some of the best times and marks in the state for track.

Jacob Clairmont, a senior at Polson High School, currently has the fastest 300-meter hurdles time in Class A, along with the second fastest time in the 110-meter hurdles, the second highest mark in the pole vault, the third longest long jump mark, and who competes on the 400-meter relay team that has the second fastest time.

Clairmont has been a strong presence on the Polson track team over the last few years. He’s placed at state the last two years and has big plans for his last high school season.

He said he started getting serious about track around his sophomore year. “I kind of surprised myself sophomore year,” Clairmont said. “This year my times are some of the fastest in the state. Hopefully I can do well, I’m looking forward to hopefully bringing some hardware home.”

Clairmont gave up football and basketball to focus on track, and has spent a lot of time in the offseason working hard. “I decided to get in the weight room, not really for strength training, just endurance training,” he said.

Clairmont has worked hard to get where he is today. “I spent a lot of time at the track with my coaches, sometimes I’m the last leaving here working on hurdles and pole vault, those events take up a lot of time to perfect,” he said.

Polson’s head track coach, Mike Ellis, has worked with Clairmont for four years. In that time, Ellis said he’s done things right. “He’s a good leader. Kind of a silent leader. He’s not the rah-rah guy. He’s kind of the silent leader that does what he is supposed to.”

Thanks to his mom, Clairmont is now officially enrolled at the University of Washington. “My mom came in to the school and pulled me out of class to sign the paperwork,” he said with a laugh.

While there have been colleges calling about Clairmont running track for them, he decided to prioritize his college with his future academic plans. That plan? “I want to go into aerospace engineering,” he said. He’s currently taking two AP classes, one in physics and the other in calculus. “Hopefully they will give me a head start.”

However, just because he’s focused on school does not mean he’s going to give up on track.

While he does not believe his individual times are good enough to compete at the collegiate level, he, and other coaches, believe he could excel at the decathlon, which adds up a number of different events. He hopes to walk on to the track team, but has worries. “I’m just kind of worried about managing my time between college and track,” he said.

Ellis said it’s clear that Clairmont is leaving it all out on the field this year. “He’s pretty intense. He’s got some goals.”

Clairmont said he believes he’s been successful for two reasons. The first is his competitive spirit. “I’m really competitive in everything. I always want to be better, not necessarily against other people, but I just kind of have this thirst for knowledge I guess.” The other reason for his success lies with his family. “My mom has always been there with academics. In sports, it’s definitely my dad. He’s always there for me, recording all of my events and making sure I’m on the right track.”

As Clairmont’s academic and athletic high school career comes to an end, his coach said he’s the type of kid a coach wants on the team. “He’s headed down the right track,” Ellis said, “We can only hope most of our kids are like that.”