Name: Jacob Frank Bigham
Height: 6’2”
Weight: 230 pounds
Hometown: Kamloops, B.C.
Elementary School: A.E. Perry
High School (2005 – 2010): Norkam Secondary
– Graduated with Honours
– Male Athlete of the Year
– Interior high school football conference Lineman of the year 2009
– First Gatorade Provincial All-star football player since 1995 from Norkam
– Grad class historian
High School Grad: 2010
Summer 2010:
– Played in the Football Canada Cup for Team BC
– After BC’s 10 year hiatus worm the Football Canada Cup we took the Bronze Medal at the tournament in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
Post High School (2010 – 2012):
– After graduation and a very successful high school career I moved on with life and with my football career.
– I got a job Landscaping with pronto a local landscaping company while playing football as a 17 year old in the BCFC (British Columbia Football Conference) for the Kamloops Broncos
– I started at Right tackle and Long Snapper for the Broncos but I did not have the strongest team around me and ended up playing every other position around me
– I was a back-to-back BCFC Conference All-star as a 17 & 18 year old (2010 & 2011)
– Team Captain as an 18 year old in 2011
The Road to Butte College (2012 – 2014):
– My high school football coach Todd Graham absolutely changed my life when I was 12 years old at Norkam and he gave me all the advice to get down to Butte College in Chico, California (Alma Mater of Aaron Rodgers).
– At 19 years old i packed my 1999 Ford Ranger with all my close possessions and by myself drove the 16 hours Into a different country to play a game that i would give my entire life for.
– After my career as a Bronco I was fortune enough to be given the opportunity to move down to Chico, California and play at THE Butte College
– In 2012 in was a Redshirt on the football field meaning that I practiced everyday and was a part of all team activities but i did not play In the games on Saturdays (pretty much a walking talking tackling dummy)
– This redshirt year was eye opening as i had come from a place where i was the best football player around and now i was amongst guys that would go on to play in the CFL, NFL, and Arena Football League.
– In the classroom i was an absolute animal and maintained a 4.0 GPA through my first 2 years at Butte College (academic First Team). It was a stats class during my 5th semester at but that killed my 4.0 run.
– 2013 was a year that will go down as one of the tops in my entire life. I earned a starting spot on a team that had went 11 wins and 1 loss in 2012. In 2013 we had a record breaking season, shattering every offensive record every the previous 2008 team that went on to win a National Title. In 2013 we went UNDEFEATED 12 – 0 and won the Junior College National Title on our home field the Dash Dome at Butte College beating Fullerton College from Southern California.
– 2014 the team was different and we lost 2 games by 1 point ended up being conference champions but losing in the re-formatted playoff structure first round to American River College ending the season 7 and 4. On this team I was a Conference All-star.
– In 2014 I was given the biggest honour i could have ever possibly received even though some might not understand. at the end of the season i was voted TEAM CAPTAIN in a team vote. Now, junior college is insane there are players from 18 years old to 25 years old. From every reach of the United States and even including international players from Canada, Sweden, and Australia. This accolade was very humbling.
– 2014 graduated from Butte College with my Associates Degree in Social and Behavioural Sciences
The Journey Continues, Fort Lewis College (2015 – 2017):
– After my career at Butte College and 2.5 years that completely changed my life. I was offered a Full Ride Scholarship to Fort Lewis College in the NCAA Division 2. I was given the opportunity to go and finish my degree and continue to play football.
– Fort Lewis College is located In one of the most beautiful parts of the Southwest United States, Durango, Colorado.
– These 2.5 years would again change my life and enough took place i could write a book about it.
– 2015 we went 7 and 4 on the football field, Â one of the best seasons in FLC history. During this season i started at Short Snapper and completely tore the Labrum in my right shoulder requiring surgery.
– 2016 after a successful shoulder surgery i began rehab and a journey I will never forget. As a requirement for my degree in Environmental Studies i had to complete 170 hours of an internship. I was fortunate enough to meet Brian White, part of the US Forest Service, and i got to intern for the SAN Juan National Forest as a Wilderness Monitor. There was 4 of us and we spent the next 8 weeks training, living, and monitoring the Weminuchee Wilderness the biggest wilderness area in Colorado.
– The Football season of 2016 would be the last time I ever put on a helmet and we went 4 wins and 7 losses. I started games at right tackle, centre, right guard, left guard, and short snapper. I knew that offence like the back of my hand by the end. I was working in the campus bookstore after this season when my phone rang and it was a CFL scout telling me i had the opportunity to keep playing.
– 2017 I trained every morning from 5:30am to 8:30am with our strength coach and got into some of the best shape of my entire life (remember you have to be north of 280 pounds to play the position i played and maintaining weight on a college budget became very hard). I had interviews with the Edmonton Eskimos, Montreal Alouettes, and Toronto Argonots. Come draft day in 2017 I was not chosen for any rosters and the dream was more or less over.
– 2017 was also my last semester of college and I graduated with my degree In Environmental Studies and was one of 3 people chosen to present my Senior Thesis project at the year end gala. Another grate accolade for something i poured my heart into.
2017 – Present:
– From the end of undergrad until present I have been trying to get into teaching but not without some crazy adventure.
– In the fall of 2017 i moved back to Northern California to the little town of Grass Valley, located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. It was hear for the next year and a half i worked as a Vegetation Monitor for a company called ArborMetrics a subcontractor of Pacific Gas & Electric the large power company In California. I got to work in the high country of the Sierra Nevadas hiking power lines and marking trees to be cut to prevent fires and power outages. I also got to spend time in Mendocino County on the coast of California loving In towns of now more than 300 hundred people hiking power lines by myself In the middle of nowhere. It was somewhere in those mountains i knew i could not do that for the rest of my life.
– Winter 2018 (sometime right after Christmas) ArborMetrics pulled its contract from Northern California and everyone lost their jobs. Shortly after this happened I moved back to Kamloops and put my effort into getting into the B.ED program at TRU.
– Sparing some details its COVID – 19 and I am almost done the second semester of this program and one year away from being a teacher a profession i can not wait to be a part of.
