To represent his country, Payton Jacobson had to find competition outside its borders.
Jacobson, who calls Elkhorn home, clinched a spot in the 2024 Summer Olympics in April when he won the 87-kilogram Greco-Roman bracket at the U.S. Olympic wrestling trials in State College, Pennsylvania. The discipline lacks the stateside visibility of its brethren folkstyle and freestyle wrestling, so Jacobson followed an off-the-beaten path approach to find this level of success.
There's no NCAA competition for the discipline; the only college that sponsors the sport is Northern Michigan University in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, which doubles as a training ground for Greco Roman wrestlers competing nationally and internationally. It was Jacobson's natural next home considering what he did in high school, walking away from WIAA wrestling after his sophomore year at Elkhorn.
Instead, Jacobson transferred to Catholic Central in Burlington to train in Greco-Roman with coach Bill Kahle.
"He offered a program where we traveled overseas to train with more kids that adapted to Greco more because there's no folkstyle on the other side of the world," Jacobson said Wednesday of his voyages to places like Sweden, Denmark and Austria. "Folkstyle, it's completely different stance … I didn't really hit puberty until my junior and senior year, and that was when I started to get into Greco. As I was hitting puberty, I was kind of developing the same skills in Greco, so that's why it's kind of ingrained in me."
Greco-Roman possesses a number of differences from the more recognizable freestyle or folkstyle, the biggest being that touching the legs is forbidden, so there are no single-leg or double-leg takedowns. Throws become considerably more important.
Jacobson, who said he drew inspiration from former Germantown star wrestler Jesse Thielke — a 2016 Olympian in Greco-Roman wrestling — found that the style just suited him. He followed Elkhorn state-champion wrestler Benji Peak to Northern Michigan with the intent of training for an opportunity just like the one he got this year.
With a 3-1 win over Spencer Woods in the rubber match of a best-of-three series for the 87-kilogram title, the 21-year-old Jacobson was off to Paris.
"My freshman year at Northern, I was definitely partying a little too much, wasn't taking my training as seriously," he said. "I remember working out one day and thinking, 'What am I doing? I'm supposed to be great. I need to take this sh-- seriously.' I started really believing in myself. It was a huge change in my mindset."
Jacobson, who's named for Chicago Bears legend Walter Payton — an NFL legend who lived close to where Jacobson's mother grew up in Arlington Heights, Ill. — said it's a challenge for Greco-Roman to find a foothold in the United States, with more medal opportunities and greater exposure available to other disciplines.
But it's not unheard of for Americans to have Olympic success in the event, with three golds and 12 other medals in the summer games. Rulon Gardner's win in 2000 represents the most recent American gold medal, the same year Freedom High School graduate Garrett Lowney got a bronze in his weight class.
"You start getting into European countries, the Asian countries, they just have their men wrestle Greco and women freestyle," Jacobson said. "Across the world, I would say Greco is a lot more respected."
He'll again square off with the rest of the world later this summer, with a flight to Paris on July 22 and his competition running Aug. 7-8. In the meantime, he's headed back to Marquette, Michigan, training with partners from Switzerland and Norway to prepare him for the fight.
"I'm just keeping my head down, trying to take it day by day and do what I can to bring back the gold medal."
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