Lima Central Catholic’s Billy Bourk, a multi-year starter in three sports who plans to play baseball and football at Adrian College, is The Lima News 2024 Boys Scholar Athlete of the Year.
Richard Parrish | The Lima News
Billy Bourk likes to be busy.
“I’m not one who does a great job with downtime,” the recent Lima Central Catholic graduate said.
Being a four-year starter in baseball and basketball and a three-year starter in football, along with hitting the books for a 4.15 grade point average kept him busy at LCC. And it made him this year’s The Lima News Boys Scholar Athlete of the Year.
With that aversion to idle time, maybe it isn’t a surprise that Bourk will attempt to play both football and baseball when he reports to NCAA Division III Adrian (Mich.) College later this summer.
Baseball has always been his favorite sport. It still is. But football has become a close second.
“I always said baseball was my first love. It was the sport that always drew me toward it the most. It was the sport that called my name first. It’s always been that way,” Bourk said.
But as the number of games left in his high school football career dwindled down to single digits, and he had a big senior season in which he caught 37 passes for 927 yards and nine touchdowns, he began to think about playing two sports in college.
“At the beginning of football season, my mindset was that I had absolutely zero interest in college football. But what ended up happening was we had about six weeks left in the season and I started getting this feeling like this is really coming to an end here. I came to the conclusion that I really didn’t know if I wanted to hang up the cleats yet,” he said.
The 6-5 wide receiver was named honorable mention All-Ohio in football as a senior. His late interest in playing two sports altered his recruiting picture because not every college baseball coach who pictured him on the pitcher’s mound was all right with him playing football.
Adrian is “very on board with the two sport option,” Bourk said. “They are very open to it. I think I’m ready for it. I’m really excited for it.”
During his high school career, LCC played in three state semifinals – in football in 2020 and 2022 and in this year’s Division III boys basketball state tournament.
Along with his skills in three sports, one of Bourk’s trademarks has been his long hair. But even that choice has a plan attached to it.
“I’ve had long hair since the second grade. When I got to high school I thought I might as well do something with this. It’s become a thing where I grow my hair out for two years and then donate it,” he said.
Bourk said he plans to become a high school history teacher and coach.
The other members of the boys Scholar Athlete team are Theo Andreas (Bluffton), David Etzkorn (Elida), Isaac Gallmeier (Delphos Jefferson), Jacob Granger (Bluffton), Alex McGuire (Shawnee), Logan Mershman (Columbus Grove), Salah Mohammed (Shawnee), Zac Niekamp (Wapakoneta), Keaton Schnipke (Ottoville), Quin Schroeder (Leipsic), Carter Sudhoff (Spencerville), Owen Tobe (Miller City), Colin White (Ottawa-Glandorf) and Ethan Yoder (Kenton).
OSU-Lima is a co-sponsor of The Lima News Scholar Athlete team and offers scholarship money for use on its campus to the top 30 scholar athletes.
