There are no “full rides” in high school, right?
You”d best talk to Josh Boke, an Upper Lake High School senior and running back/cornerback for the Cougar football team, before making that determination.
Boke has given new meaning to the term that up to now has applied to a four-year university scholarship awarded to a gifted athlete. Actually, it”s the original meaning.
Boke”s “full ride” is 23 miles one way from his home on Soda Bay Road in Kelseyville to ULHS. On a bicycle.
He has been pedaling this round-trip on an almost daily basis since the beginning of summer. Why?
“I love Upper Lake,” he says. “All my friends are here.”
More than one of those friends have told him, “Boke, you”re crazy. I wouldn”t do it. I”d just go to Kelseyville (which he could if he chose to).”
“I say, ”That”s the difference between me and you.” I”m dedicated to this team and this school. That”s why I do it,” says Josh.
The square-jawed Boke”s blood is so true-blue Cougar red that this summer he rode all the way up from Soda Bay just to lift weights for two hours, says ULHS assistant coach Don Meri.
Once, he made the trip with a flat front tire.
“I just kind of leaned back and put all my weight on the back tire,” he says. “That got me a little ways, but I had to walk the rest of the way.”
On another day he did the distance, which he says takes about two hours, in 109-degree heat. How tough was that?
“It was interesting,” says Josh.
Craig Kinser, the Cougars” head coach, talks about Boke with a mixture of fondness and befuddlement.
“We didn”t even know he was riding his bike to school until one day we asked him, ”How are you getting here?”” mused Kinser, who gives Boke at least a partial lift on occasion. But on other occasions, Kinser will say, “Hey Josh, you had to go right by my house. Why didn”t you stop?”
“… And he”ll just say, ”I just felt like riding to school today.”
Boke, says his coach, is not a gifted football player. But he ranks high on the tenacity scale.
“He”s a hard-nose kid, not a natural. He”s more of a run stopper than a pass stopper,” Kinser said last Saturday after Boke played a significant part in blunting Middletown”s ground game and forcing the Mustangs to go the pass for an eventual win.
“If he gets a hand on you, you ain”t going nowhere. We”ll use him against any team that tries to run through us and put him on the run side,” Kinser adds. “He”s a wrestler and my personal experience is that basketball players make defensive backs, wrestlers don”t.”
Boke would probably have wrestled for ULHS last year, but an ankle injury sustained in a novice tournament kept him out for the season.
“… But I went to eveery practice and every meet,” Josh says proudly.
This year, he”ll try again. If he has the skill to complement his physiology (only 4-6 percent body fat), he could be formidable on the mat. Maybe we should all take a second look at this bicycle thing. The bike rides have contributed to making Boke”s body a solid 171 pounds.
Boke”s future seems to be with the toughest segment of the U.S. Army. He wants to join the Rangers.
“He”s signed, sealed and ready to go,” says Kinser.
“I want to push myself to the limit and see how far I can go,” Josh ssays.
It is, as we all know, 46 miles to begin with.
Boke is undeterred by challenges. He is one of five offspring of a single mother, who obviously endowed him with some admirable traits. The family lives in a five-bedroom house whose residents include an older sister, her husband and their infant in the upstairs.
“We struggle from time to time, but we survive,” Josh shrugs. “I help all I can.”
He is grateful to the coaches and others who at times give him a partial, and sometimes full, ride home.
Mike Visivich, an Upper Lake tire dealer, gave him a new, well-equipped bicycle that far outstrips the one he used much of the summer.
“The old one was like one of those little kiddy bikes,” Kinser says.
With growing signs of winter”s encroachment, “people keep asking me what I”m going to do when it starts to rain,” says Boke.
“I”m going to get wet,” he answers.
