South Winn quarterback Jacob Herold (4) passed for a school-record 2,121 yards and 23 touchdowns in his 2018 sophomore season. While the athlete unquestionably works hard to produce results on the field, he also works hard off the field and on the sideline to manage his Type 1 diabetes. Throughout every game, with the help of trainer Heather Lange (right), Herold checks his blood sugar after every quarter in order to stay healthy on the field and perform to the best of his capability. (Zakary Kriener photo)
Family, teammates help keep diabetes in check
Zakary Kriener
News Writer
zkriener@fayettepublishing.com
During the 2018 South Winneshiek football season, sophomore quarterback Jacob Herold passed for a school-record 2,121 yards and 23 touchdowns. While those numbers rank amongst the top in the entire state, the young athlete has had to game-plan for more than just the 11 defensive players on the field against him.
“I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when I was in first grade,” said the 15-year-old Herold. “It was definitely not something me or my family expected, but we were more than ready to deal with it.”
The reason that Herold and his family were so quick to react to his initial symptoms and prepared to treat the disease, which affects approximately 1.25 American children and adults, is because Jacob’s older brother, Mitch, also has Type 1 diabetes.
“When Mitch was diagnosed five years before Jacob, the doctors told us that the chances of Jacob having diabetes were very slim,” noted their mother, Wendy Mihm-Herold. “They told us (her and husband Alvin) that the odds were comparable to winning the lottery, so we never really worried about it.”
Despite the small chances, the Herold family knew exactly what to do when Jacob started showing symptoms of the disease in 2010.