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Will Fath, track

By Mike Ciarochi, For The Greene County Messenger 4 min read
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Will Fath is a track athlete who also played football at Jefferson-Morgan.

He also maintained a 3.9 GPA and will study computer science in college.

“I’m going to go to the University of Vermont,” Fath said. “ItĢƵ kind of a little bit far away, but I want to get out there.”

Actually, Fath chose Vermont because it is the closest to home of his college choices.

“I am a huge skier, thatĢƵ one of the biggest things in my life,” Fath said. “I wanted to go somewhere where I could do that and I wanted to get out of Pennsylvania, to experience something else, something new and different. It was either Utah, Colorado, big ski areas. Vermont was the best place for me. It is close enough that I can get home if needed, yet far enough away that I won’t feel like itĢƵ the same thing all over again.”

Fath is Jefferson-MorganĢƵ spring sports male selection in the Centennial Chevrolet Scholar/Athlete Spotlight program. The son of Mike and Kelly Fath, of Rices Landing, he has a younger sister, Betsy, who is home schooled.

“In previous years, I’ve been a runner and jumper, a little bit of everything,” Fath said. “This year, I’ve mainly focused on my throwing events, javelin in particular. In the past I had qualified for the WPIAL meet, but I had a goal I wanted to hit and I wasn’t going to go just because I had qualified. I didn’t meet my expectations, so I didn’t think I deserved to perform there.”

Fath is used to being undersized and overlooked. He is tall and thin, yet is a thrower in track and was a lineman in football.

“I threw everything, shot, discus, javelin, against people who were a lot bigger than me,” Fath said. “It was a lot like football. I was a lineman going against a lot of people who were a lot bigger than me. But I’ve always been able to hold my own.”

And he did for, as old-fashioned as it may sound, school spirit.

“I think school spirit is pretty important,” Fath said. “This is a pretty small town, everybody knows everybody. The school you come from is like your home. ItĢƵ where my family is and the people I’ve grown up with since I was in kindergarten. ThatĢƵ going to be the weirdest thing about moving up to Vermont is that I won’t be around them anymore.”

Speaking of Vermont, Fath believes he will be starting on the ground level in learning all there is to know about computers.

“We have a very basic HTML class, so I’m pretty much starting from scratch with it,” Fath said. “I’ve done some studying at home, but they start from the ground up at Vermont for people who have never programmed before, so I’ll be able to learn everything, as long as I put in the work and I’m willing to. Computer science is more than just programming. There are a bunch of different sub-fields. I know I want to work with computers, so itĢƵ just a matter of learning what I want to do and making sure I love it.”

Fath doesn’t plan on playing intercollegiate sports at Vermont, but he isn’t quite ruling it out, either.

“A lot of the sports up there are DI, so I know I’m not at that level,” Fath said. “But they do have a lot of club sports that I could easily participate in … as well as a ski club, which I know I will participate in. They have a competitive team that is one of the top programs in the nation. They have had a few go to the Olympics. They don’t have football, but they do have track. I guess I could mess around with that a little bit.”

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