ORONO – Jacob Folz grew up in West Paris dreaming of joining the military.

Coming from a family that had made military service a priority, from the Revolutionary War through the present-day conflict in Iraq, it seemed a natural choice.

However, during his senior year at Oxford Hills High School a routine physical exam as part of the application process to the U.S. Naval Academy changed everything.

Folz was diagnosed with a heart murmur caused by congenital defect – a condition on which the Department of Defense wouldn’t take a chance.

“They’ll have to eventually replace the heart valve, probably in my late 30s, early 40s,” Folz said matter-of-factly.

The bicuspid aortic valve hasn’t kept Folz from being a productive student-athlete at the University of Maine.

The 6-foot-2, 275-pound senior will again get the start at right tackle Saturday when the Black Bears travel to Stony Brook for a 3 p.m. nonconference game.

“He’s the smallest of our offensive linemen, but his heart [is big],” said UMaine head coach Jack Cosgrove. “He’s a worker, a technician and he’s a tough, hard-nosed, I-want-to-be-in-the-game kind of kid.”

UMaine has received a substantial return on its original $1,000 scholarship investment.

As one of only a handful of Mainers to be recruited each year by the Black Bears, Folz was eager to accept the challenge of playing Division I football. There was no instant gratification as he worked to get bigger, stronger and faster.

He played in one game his second year and three games in 2005, then battled his way into the starting lineup last season and made six starts at right tackle.

Folz went from 245 pounds to around 290, but now checks in at about 275.

“Jake was a guy who was somewhat undersized when he came here from Oxford Hills, but really loved the game of football,” Cosgrove said. “He had a great passion for the game. He’s worked tremendously hard since he’s been here and basically just made us play him.”

Folz has demonstrated versatility, playing both guard and tackle. He started this season at left guard, but moved to tackle after an injury to a teammate. He played both spots in 2006.

Folz breathed a sigh of relief Aug. 16 when older sister Katharine walked off a military transport and into the terminal at Bangor International Airport. The second lieutenant was returning stateside with a group of Marines who had just finished a tour in Iraq.

Folz had received permission from Cosgrove to miss a morning practice to see Katharine, who had helped raise Jacob as a teenager when his mother, Verna Lynch, was out of town on business trips.

At the suggestion of teammate John Wormuth, Cosgrove took the entire UMaine team to BIA and greeted the Marines.

“It was probably one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me and for my family,” Folz said. “It meant a lot to my sister and my mother and all the 250 or so Marines that were there, to be welcomed when they got off the plane.”

Folz credits his mother and sister as being the most important influences in his life.

“They’re probably the toughest people I know,” he said.

Folz will graduate in May with a degree in mechanical engineering. This semester, he and three other students are working on their senior design project. They are trying to develop a turbine system that will generate electricity powered by the movement of ocean tides.

“He works as hard in the classroom as he does on the football field,” Cosgrove said.

“He’s really somebody that we’re quite proud of in terms of representing the program.”

Inspired by the writing of Jack O’Connor, Ernest Hemingway and Robert Ruark, Folz developed a fascination with South Africa. He hopes after graduation to find an engineering job there.

“It definitely had a lot to do with the geography but also the wildness of the place, the exotic nature. It always fascinated me,” he said.

Folz knows he’ll be able to look back with a tremendous sense of accomplishment despite having taken a different path than what he had originally hoped.

“I definitely kind of had to re-evaluate what I wanted to do,” said Folz, who is seen annually by a cardiologist and has an echocardiogram every other year to make sure his heart condition hasn’t worsened.

“Things turned out pretty well,” he said. “I definitely can’t complain. Coming here, I got a good education and I’d like to think I’ve earned what I’ve gotten.”