Crestview’s Bacon keeps his plate full
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GREENFORD -- Crestview Local High School graduate Owen Bacon's scholastic career has been a whirlwind so far.
It's probably fitting that he's going to be a Geneva College Golden Tornado next.
This spring Bacon pulled off the rare feat of obtaining a high school degree along with a college associate's degree in cyber security from Kent State University. In the fall he's headed to Geneva to pursue a bachelor's in computer science and will play football for the Golden Tornadoes.
"Doing football has always been a large commitment, but it is always something I enjoyed doing," Bacon said. "In that sense it wasn't necessarily difficult to parse out time for each thing. (Academics and football) are both very important to me."
Bacon will wrap up his high school football career by playing in the Penn-Ohio Stateline Classic on June 20 at Geneva College, his new home.
Bacon started taking college credit classes as a freshman through Kent State's College Credit Plus program, which allows high school students to obtain college credits for free.
He said his typical school day would start with regular high school classes he needed to make his high school graduation requirements. About halfway through the school day he would go home and work on college courses such as networking or physical building. He said at 2:10 or 2:20 p.m. he would head back to Crestview High School to get ready for football practice.
"Football has always been an outlet for me," Bacon said. "After a day of working on all of that stuff you get stressed out and you just go and play football. It's great."
He said there was a lot of flexibility built-in to allow him to pull off getting his associate's degree.
"The nature of Kent State's and Crestview's (College Credit Plus) program allowed me to do online classes from anywhere which helped me as far as travel time was concerned," Bacon said. "I could do classes at home if that is what I had time for. I could do classes at the school if I knew I had to be there quickly."
Bacon said if other kids want to try it, they'll have to be very aware of the time they are dedicating to everything in their life.
"Getting a schedule was the thing that helped me the most," Bacon said. "Knowing what I am doing every single day and making it consistent is by far the helpful thing. I still recommend trying to do lots of different things because staying diverse can help you a lot down the road. Everything complements each other."
As for what's next, Bacon said he doesn't know if things will be any easier with his associate's already in hand at 18 years old. He especially thinks college football will bring on a whole new challenge.
"I've heard college football can get pretty intense," Bacon said. "I would bet there are things that are far more difficult. I'll be spending a lot of time in the film study room for sure."
Bacon said he's excited to compete at Geneva and that he's already got the summer training program going.
"It's a lot of lifting," Bacon said.
If anyone can do the heavy lifting, though, it's him.