University of New England

On a Mountaintop: Jake Budny, UNECOM Class of '09

[Editor's Note: This profile originally appeared in the August 2006 COMmunicator]

“The whole decathlon is ridiculous, but the 1,500 meters is insanity.” – Rafer Johnson

The Price of Gain

Some people might circle the Wal-Mart lot fifteen times to find the closest spot. Some people might exhaust their strength in races without hurdles. Some people might rest content on the climb up. Some people, but not Jake Budny. To Jake, discomfort is the price of gain.

“Relaxation for me,” says Jake, “would be sitting on top of a mountain I’ve just climbed.” It is a Superman statement from the lips of Clark Kent, a Ford GT beneath the skin of a Saab. Jake is a rare combination of mild-mannered civility and quiet confidence; a fine scholar who won All-America honors as a decathlete. He credits his character to a loving family; the drive is his own.

He’s ready to use both of these traits to effect change as UNECOM’s SGA president during the 2006-2007 academic year.

“A Tiny Morph of my Brother”

Jake is no sapling, but 6’2” seems short when you live among trees. His older brother is 6’5”. His grandpa clears 6’4”. Even his mom is tall. “I’m a tiny morph of my brother,” chuckles Jake, and perhaps this explains the genesis of his drive to excel. He followed in his brother’s considerable footsteps through high school at St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute for Boys in Buffalo, New York, and nearly decided to attend the same University. “I idolized Adam,” he says, “I wanted to be just like him.”

He explains: “Anytime I think that I’m not making the most of my time or potential, I get bored.” Something needed to change in order for him to feel complete. It was time to push the envelope. It was time to compete.

“A Track Team of One”

Midway through his freshman year at Rochester, Jake measured his free time and decided to pick up the decathlon. “Picking up” the decathlon is like “happening upon” a marathon. The time commitment is akin to running a small African nation.

The decathlon is a ten-event track and field competition designed to assess the overall athleticism of a man (the seven-event heptathlon is the women’s counterpart.) Tracing its origins to the ancient Olympic Games, the decathlon puts a premium on the Greek model of balance and whole-person fitness. Each decathlete is essentially a track team of one.

According to The Decathlon Association, the decathlon is “a two-day miniature track meet designed to ascertain the sport’s best all-around athlete. Within its competitive rules, each athlete must sprint for 100 meters, long jump, heave a 16-pound shot put, high jump, and run 400 meters – all in that very order – on the first day.” After surviving eight or ten hours of all-out effort, decathletes compete the next day in the 110 meter hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, and at the very end of the competition, everyone’s favorite: the 1,500 meter run. It is a cruel irony of the decathlon that the last event may be the hardest of all.

The scoring system is based on an international scoring table designed to evaluate each event objectively. A competitor accrues points based not on place but on actual times and distances, with the final score for Olympic-caliber decathletes ranging somewhere near 8000 points. With so many different events, no one can master them all. It is a competition of compromise, where “concessions must be made in preparation for the sake of maximizing the total score.” Jake learned this lesson well, and he strives to avoid extremes in life in order to maximize his own potential. A Weird Sort of Balance Jake chose to add a Cell and Developmental Biology major to his German studies at the start of his sophomore year.

Jake's girlfriend, Linsey, at the family farm near Buffalo, New York

While juggling a heavy course load, Jake also trained daily to become an outstanding decathlete.He was strong in the throwing events from high school, and soccer had developed his natural speed, but the pole vault was a trick, and the long and high jumps were awkward for the bulked-up Budny. The first time he vaulted, he straight-poled 8-feet and was happy to survive. Still, out of all the events, the excruciating 1,500-meter run was Jake’s Achilles’ heel. It was brutal.

By the time Jake was a senior he had won three straight New York State Decathlon titles, competed in the NCAA’s once, and scored in 19 different indoor and outdoor events at Rochester. He had cleared 14’ in the pole vault, improved his jumps, and suffered through the 1,500 meters. In addition to athletic success, he did well in his double majors and managed to enjoy himself on the weekends with his track or techie friends. They called him a “nock,” because he was both a nerd and a jock. The well-rounded pressures of his considerable responsibilities pushed Jake to the limit, but he somehow managed to avoid all extremes. It was a weird sort of balance.

All-American

Characteristically humble, Jake doesn’t talk about his success in athletics, but a simple Google search pulls up plenty. After years of athletic development, Jake was primed for the spring of 2004.

He won competition after competition, setting a number of personal records in the process, and his success was duly recognized.

Dad, Jake, and Grandpa at NCAA Div. III Nationals

Jake won the Louis Alexander Award as Rochester’s top male athlete, then received the title of “Atlantic Region Male Athlete of the Year” by the United States Track Coaches Association. Invited to participate in the NCAA Div. III National Track and Field Championships, Jake finished with 6,479 points, good enough for 8th place and a share of All-America honors. During the competition, he won the shot put, placed second in the discus, and was third in the 100-meter dash. Throws and sprints again carried him through, but his sweetest achievement was in the final event. On the bubble to make the cut for All-American, Jake bettered his season-best time in the 1,500-meters by 11 seconds to win enough points to retain his lead over the 9th-place competitor.

A Torn Quad

It was something wrong with his body that made Jake believe that medicine could be right for him. “I tore my quad between freshman and sophomore year at school,” he says, “and the doctors were just outstanding; they inspired me to become a physician.” He marvels at human anatomy and the machine of the body: “It’s such an amazing creation.” Jake wants to specialize in orthopedics and really focus on the body and its natural processes.

He applied to a number of allopathic and osteopathic schools, but the philosophy of osteopathy appealed most directly to his passions. “To treat the person as a person and not just as a disease is what I’m about,” says Jake, “and I want to be around like-minded people.” He does not care to add fuel to the fires that sometimes flare between MDs and DOs: “I think that who you are makes you a good or bad doctor. Every person should focus on being the best doctor they can be, without trying to be better than others. Focus on helping your patients get better; they don’t care about the letters after your name.”

UNECOM was the best fit for Jake. He loves the sea and the mountains of Maine. “I’m an outdoorsman,” he says, “so the location here appealed to me. And I really love the small-town, trusting atmosphere. It has a very comfortable feel.” He was also impressed by the anatomy program and by the spark of energy he seemed to find in everybody’s eye.

“They Haven’t Found Me Out!”

For such an accomplished person, Jake carries a genuine sense of his own frailties. It is a winsome characteristic that makes him a particularly good leader, since he is unlikely to run around beating his chest or barking out orders. One of the highlights of his first year was getting back the first Anatomy exam, noting that he had passed, and thinking, “Hah! They haven’t found me out yet! Maybe I do belong here!” Other key events were the “ischial tuberosity spread,” which really brought home the fact that he was in medical school, and the last night of the first semester when a number of classmates got together to really bond as friends. Perhaps the hardest time of the year was Easter, which was sandwiched between two exams. Jake was unable to return home for the holiday, and the absence of family time was tougher than Jake anticipated. In fact, it was a watershed, helping Jake to realize that whatever he did in the future, he wanted to be near his family. In the meantime, Jake wants to make the most of his years at UNECOM. He ran for the SGA presidency to make a difference. “I think there’s something more we can do here,” he says, “It’s a great school, and we can make it stellar.” He was also impressed last year by the sympathy and helpfulness of the second-year students. “I want to give something back,” says Jake, “I want my class to leave a good legacy, as well.”

Jake and his Grandpa at the White Coat                 Ceremony in October.

The Last Lap

The decathlon has certainly helped to shape Jake. He declares that out of all the events in the decathlon, the 1,500-meters is probably the event most similar to medical school. In a sense, it’s something that the human body is not designed for. “The worst part,” says Jake, “is the anticipation. It’s a mental game, since you’re doing something that you haven’t really trained to do.” You can lose your nerve, too, through the paralyzing fear that you might not do well. “You just have to let go of your fears and your hang-ups,” he says, “and let natural talents and hard work carry you through.” 

The Budny Family: L-R Jake, Adam, Mom and Dad

Jake also knows that he could not have achieved what he has without the support of his family. He speaks of his parents with utmost respect, acknowledging their heavy investment in his life and the different roles they have played. “To me, they are the ideal couple,” he says, “I learned a lot of life principles from them, and took a lot of character from how they lived their lives. I want to be like them.” His grandfather, too, has influenced Jake. “My grandpa has been through everything: World War II, cancer, his wife’s death. He’s taught me so much. He has such great perspective.” And then there’s his brother Adam.

“There was a time,” says Jake, “ when he would beat me up. Then there was a stage when I idolized him, and then later in high school we drifted apart a bit.” But now they are good friends. “We have both matured as adults, and now we can sit in silence without needing to say anything,” Jake reflects. “I feel like we’re real brothers now, all wedgies aside.”

In the midst of the 1,500-meter run of medical school, Jake is looking to that final lap and is running unafraid. “It’s a long road to get through med school,” he says, “and I’m realistic about that. But I am getting more and more excited about orthopedics.” Not only so, he says with a twinkle in his eye, “but I’ve talked to my brother about the possibility of going into practice with him.”

Probably on some mountaintop.

-Steve Smith, RSAS