NEW PALESTINE — James Borum was on the wrong road.
Thanks to his grandparents, Lewis and Linda McQueen, his mother, Melissa Antonetty, dedication to his high school football team and a lot of hard work on his own, Borum found the right path.
Borum — “J.T.” to his friends — will pick up his New Palestine High School diploma Friday night after making honor roll, with nearly straight A’s senior year. According to the New Palestine residents family and teachers, that academic success the product of the progress and positive changes the 18-year-old has made over the last three years.
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Borum transferred from Warren Central High School to New Palestine High School after his freshman year. Diagnosed with autism and anxiety when he was in the eighth grade, Borum was struggling while attending Warren Central. Known as a social butterfly, instead of fitting in he was picked on and bullied, his grandmother said.
With mostly C’s and D’s on his report card at Warren Central, his mother, a New Palestine High School graduate, knew her son needed a different atmosphere.
His grandparents, who still live in New Palestine, took him in. And within a few months of getting that fresh start, they noticed their grandson’s life began to turn around.
After being given new medication to help with an attention deficit disorder (ADD), coupled with the new setting, it gave Borum a real chance, his family said. He started hitting the books, making new friends, participating in extracurricular activities, all while carving out a future.
He missed living with his mom and younger sister, Chaney Borum, but by his junior year the move began to pay off. That’s when he started to take ownership toward getting better grades, his grandmother said.
Living with his grandparents not only gave Borum the proper setting to thrive, the move also helped give him better focus toward lifelong goals.
Borum has decided to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and go into the fire service. He’s already enrolled in classes at Ivy Tech this fall where he’ll study fire science with plans to be an EMT.
Lewis McQueen, Borum’s grandfather, had a 38-year firefighting career, including eight years with the Greenfield Fire Department.
The hard work he’s seen his grandson put in from his freshman to senior year showed Lewis McQueen his grandson can accomplish anything.
For Borum, being part of the football team was a key component to changing his life.
Once he’d gotten settled in his new school, he decided to try out for his favorite sport, he said.
After going through drills and workouts with the Dragons, Kyle Ralph, head coach, approached him with a practical idea — stay on the team as a player and play very little or become the team’s manager.
Ralph and the players took such a liking to Borum they wanted him around; and Borum and his grandparents agreed, team manager was the right fit.
“I think all of us are better for having been around him and experiencing his passion for life, sports and friends,” Ralph said.
“When I got on the football team, I made a lot of friends and I didn’t have to worry about that anymore,” Borum said.
Once the weight of fitting in was finally lifted, school became Borum’s main focus and Ralph held him to the same standards as his players.
Borum worked hard in the classroom and improved his grades dramatically. And every day on the field, he’d do anything the team needed, the coach said.
From setting up drills, helping with water, filling ice baths, cleaning the shed, taking equipment in, he was a do-it-all kind of guy, Ralph said.
“We even sometimes caught him sneaking into drills to take some reps on the no-pad days,” Ralph said.
For Ralph, students like Borum are what the football program is all about, he said.
It doesn’t matter what a student’s past is, where they came from or how good of a player they are, he said; each person has to commit to excellence, and that is what Borum did.
Being part of the football family, coupled with good grades showed Borum he made the right call, switching schools.
There was, however, one negative to living with his grandparents, Borum joked: his grandmother is quite the cook, and it caused him to put on a little more weight than he’d like.
“Her coconut shrimp,” Borum said, shaking his head. “It’s great.”
