Ryle grad Jake Chisholm continues his ‘passion’ for football at Bengals’ local players’ workout

By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter

Jake Chisholm had a couple of goals after graduating from Ryle High School.

“Football and medicine, those were my passions in life,” the University of Dayton pre-med grad said after working out for the Bengals Tuesday morning at Paycor Stadium in the team’s annual session for local college players.

“Got here at 6:40,” he said, for physical exams and then on to the field for an hour of working out. “Positional drills, mainly, he said. “No real testing.”

No running the 40 or doing cone drills. “Lots of positional work,” he said, “catching passes from the quarterbacks, that sort of thing.”

Which put him back together with his former Ryle teammate and fellow Union guy, Tanner Morgan, out of the University of Minnesota.

“That was awesome,” he said of the Ryle reunion, “it brought back old high school memories.” Equally awesome: “catching balls at Paycor Stadium.”

In fact, all three Northern Kentucky players among the 31 local invitees were from Union with the third, Cooper’s Dante Hendrix, a wide receiver out of Indiana State. Jake was one of just two running backs in the group.

Tuesday was the culmination of his post-grad football focus, Jake says after graduating as a Dean’s List/ honor roll student in pre-med at Dayton in January.

“From January to mid-March, I was in the TEST Program in Miami preparing for this,” he says. Along the way he’s acquired an agent and hoping to see how far he can take it.

“Med school applications don’t open until mid-May,” he says. Right now, he’s open to whatever football opportunities come his way. “If they’re looking for role players, area guys to be on the practice squad, absolutely.”

In high school and college, the 191-pound running back was much more than that. At Ryle, the first-team All-Stater set career records of 4,763 rushing yards and 75 touchdowns in his three seasons, once rushing for 449 yards in a single game.

Jake continued much the same way at NCAA Division I FCS Dayton, where he finished as the lone Dayton player to compile three 1,000-yard-plus rushing seasons as the Flyers’ all-time leader with 5,063 all-purpose-yards, its second all-time touchdown leader with 47 and its third all-time rushing leader with 3,276 yards. As a sophomore, he led the FCS nationally with 204.3 all-purpose yards a game.

The 2022 Flyers were 8-3, missing a playoff spot by a game in the Pioneer Conference where they competed against teams like San Diego and Valparaiso with as many as 63 football scholarships but with only academic and need scholarships, no football rides.

“I loved it at Dayton,” Jake says, “greatest decision I’ve made in my life. Great community. It’s a place I feel like I could go back to at any time. Made some great contacts there for life.”

Measured officially “at 5-7, 5-8,” he says, he’s not the prototypical NFL guy. But he does hold the Ryle 100-meter record at 11.04 and has been officially clocked as fast as “in the 4.5’s” for the 40-yard dash.

If he gets a chance to continue football right now, he won’t forget medical school.

“I tell people orthopedics,” he says when they ask him what he might specialize in although he admits that’s just speculation on his part. Although with this thought: “That way I could be a team doctor.”

When you check out his resume in talking with the Dayton folks and say it looks like he’s a great young man, their response is, “He’s better than that.”

Jake replies simply.

“I’m glad I could leave my mark there.”