Kindred’s Jake Starcevic Commits to Army West Point Football

STARCEVIC WILL PLAY LINEBACKER AT ARMY WEST POINT.

KINDRED, N.D. (KVRR)– “We couldn’t have wrote a better script.”

That quote is from the father of Kindred High School Junior, Jake Starcevic. It’s every little kids dream to play college sports, but not everyone is quite talented enough to reach that dream. For one kindred athlete that dream became a reality.

On April 22, Jake Starcevic committed to play college football at Army West Point to play Linebacker.

“It just checked all the boxes for me,” said Starcevic on why he chose Army West Point. “Big time FBS football has always been a dream of mine. Academically, they’re always good and they have great facilities- some of the best facilities I’ve seen. I love the coaches and the culture. It was just everything that you want in a football experience.”

It wasn’t last year, when Jake was helping lead the Kindred Vikings football team to a lot of wins and to a high school football championship  that his parents believed he’d become a division one athlete. They say they knew when he was little.

“We were both collegiate athletes,” said Jake’s Father Alex, who is also one of his high school football coaches. “So, you always have the hope that your kids will gravitate to sports too because I know what it did for myself. And I think my wife would probably say the same thing. But I would say it really stood out to me in fifth or sixth grade.”

For mom, Jen, she had the firsthand experience of not only watching her son grow up passionate about playing sports, but also seeing Jake’s reaction to all the college football letters coming in the mail.

“It was pretty fun,” said Jen. “As a mom, when those first offers came in, he was so excited. He was jumping around and smiling and, you know, kind of like ‘I made it, I did the thing that I wanted to do’ so we’re just really proud of him.

As his father Alex said, both he and his wife Jen played college athletics. They did so at the University of North Dakota: a school that was interested in Jake. They say it would have been cool for their son to attend the same university as them, but they support Jake’s decision 100%.

“Since day one we just said it’s your decision, this is your deal,” said Alex. “This is your journey. I wasn’t going to tell him one way or the other. When we sat down and he asked advice or you know, ‘what do you think?’ then I’m gonna tell him what I think and obviously it’s an interesting situation, right? We are two UND former athletes and [he was even] being recruited by NDSU. And ‘oh boy, the Bison, hey, they got a great program too’. So, he had lots of great choices…but…when the right one calls, you just you do it.”

Jen is also in total support of Jake’s choice.

“We have big North Dakota fans, I would say in our family,” said Jen. “And we are too. It would have been fun to have him close… at one of these schools along I-29, but he’ll have a great following wherever he’s at.”

For Jake, since moving to Kindred last summer, he found immediate success with the Vikings going undefeated in football en route to a state championship, and a nearly undefeated season in basketball. Now committed to play college football, Jake shares what the last year has been like for him.

“Yeah it had been awesome, it has been a dream come true,” said Jake. “I never thought that, or I guess I did think… my goals were to win a state championship, play all these games, go to state. Just have fun with my buddies. I’m doing that now. And then obviously, I’ve had the dream of playing big time college football too at some point. So, to get to do that…. I’m just very thankful.

Now off to Army West Point, one of the biggest traditions in all of sports is the Army versus Navy game.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be awesome,” said Jake on getting to play in that game some day.  “It is played every year and in a full stadium… They bus in cadets from both schools, so, it’s gonna be a really fun atmosphere.”

As for Jake’s parents, they too are looking forward to it.

“Yeah, we haven’t talked about but I’m gonna be there,” said Alex. “I’ll be at every one of them that I can be.”

The same reigns true for Jake’s mom, Jen.

“A lot of people already said that game has already been marked on their calendar and they are coming to that game,” said Jen. “[They say, oh] Jake’s playing in that game? We’ll be there. So, I think he will have a good following of family and friends when it’s his turn to play in that game.”