KU Scholar Athlete of the Month: Jonathan Tanaka
Soccer Star Named U.S. Youth Leader of Year
- School: Trinity Christian Academy
- GRADE: 12
- Sport: Soccer
- Academics: Jonathan has a 4.0 GPA, scored 35 on the ACT, has started his own company and was National Youth Leader of the Year.
- Parents: Tory & Mark
Jonathan Tanaka of Trinity Christian Academy has amassed an impressive resume by age 18. Consider just a few of his achievements:
- National Youth Leader of the Year Award
- 18 Academic Excellence Awards
- Single season (39 goals) and career scoring record-holder (105) in soccer
- Student Council and Class President
- Multiple awards for chorus
- Entrepreneur who started one non-profit and one for-profit company.
Oh, and he’s also an egg washer.
Jonathan’s father, Mark, is a former Wall Street hedge fund manager turned chicken farmer. The family now runs Centerfield, a 55-acre farm where Jonathan rises at 4 a.m. twice a week for his egg-handling duties.
He doesn’t mind the early wake-up call. The TCA senior isn’t one to be idle.
With a 4.0 unweighted GPA and 35 on the ACT, Jonathan has applied to half of the Ivy League plus Stanford, Duke and Vanderbilt among others. He plans to major in economics, applied math or philosophy.
Not surprising for a student whose recreational reading includes philosophers and political scientists such as John Locke, Adam Smith and Alexis de Tocqueville.
For his thesis last year, Jonathan also read Karl Marx for a 35-page essay on socialism. His senior thesis is “Christianity and Liberalism.”
Those heavy topics are all his choice, his mother Tory said.
“He has an innate, internal drive and a thirst for knowledge,” Tory said. “He wants to find out more about things.”
Somehow, between all his academic and leadership pursuits, Jonathan found time to lead his soccer team to the Kentucky Christian Athletic Association State championship.
Trinity had lost three times to Assumption Academy in the semifinals since Jonathan joined the varsity as a seventh grader. In the fall, the Titans whipped their nemesis, 4-1.
Trinity lost in the State final, likely because Jonathan was missing. Instead, he attended the National Council on Youth Leadership “Town Meeting on Tomorrow” at Washington University in St. Louis, where he was named National Youth Leader of the Year.
Soccer is part of Jonathan’s volunteer life, too. In addition to his drone photography and video editing company, Zora, he also runs a non-profit called Parsek, which works with city officials to convert unused tennis courts into space for futsal, a derivative of soccer.
Guys of Jonathan’s size (6-foot-5, 200 pounds) are rare on the soccer field. So why this sport?
“Soccer is an international sport,” Jonathan said. “It’s apolitical. It doesn’t matter your race or social-economic status. It’s a beautiful game that connects people.”