News 3 Sports would like to congratulate our latest Classroom Champion, Jake Young. The Yoe High School senior has a 103.88 Grade Point Average and has ranked first in his class since freshman year. Jake has served as the Secretary and the Vice President in his High School's National Honor Society. He also participates in Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Future Farmers of America. For the last two years, Jake has qualified for the state Science Fair and received first place honors for his independent research in behavioral sciences at last year's Waco State Fair. He also recently received the Waco Aviation Award.

Jake's teacher, Toni Lafferty says, "He's just been an amazing young man. He mentors other students as well as doing a wonderful job with his work and he doesn't settle just for one answer. He wants to know more and he's willing to dig for more. He'll come back and say, 'What about this, or this?'"

The same drive has led Jake to be a four-year Letterman in Baseball, playing both second base and shortstop, as well as a three-year Letterman at wide receiver in football. In both sports, Jake has been named to the Academic All District and Honorable Mention All District teams. In 2010, Jake was also named to the Academic All State First team in football.

Outside of school, Jake also volunteers as a coach for youth football.

Coach John Broussard says, "He's a great leader out here for these guys and leads by example. I wish I had him for two or three more years! He knows what I expect and he gets all these younger guys in line as well, by his play and by being a leader and just talking to them and actually being there for them and letting them know they can come and talk to him if they've ever got any questions or anything like that."

But if you ask Jake, athletics has taught him more than he could ever pass on to those around him.

"You've definitely learned some good lessons out here, as far as coaches. They kind of try to instill in you integrity and being a good man and what that means and being able to work with different people in different situations. That's going to help me when I get into college in the different things that I do."

Speaking of college, Jake plans on attending Texas A&M University to major in Biology before he begins dental school.

Congratulations to Jake Young of Yoe High School, this week's News 3 Sports Classroom Champion.