The road to graduating high school has not been easy for Eshan Jain, but he hasn’t let family turmoil, the lack of a golf team at his school or anything else stand in the way of his goal of finding solutions to global issues while in college.

Jain, who will graduate next month as a top student at The Vanguard School, plans to attend the University of Pennsylvania to study finance to better understand how businesses and other organizations operate, language and international affairs to help him find solutions to global issues and learn about emerging markets or neuroscience to understand what triggers mental illness and how to treat it.

Mental health issues with his father resulted in several traumatic episodes, but Jain dealt with those issues by leading largely separate lives at home and at school. He wanted to make sure he didn’t let the turbulence at home affect his academic success at school, but those worlds later collided. Jain then used a strong support network of friends, and playing golf, as coping mechanisms.

“Getting on the course is relaxing and gets me outside. A lot of the time, what has happened is overwhelming and golf gives me something to fall back on when things get tough,” Eshan said. “The big thing is to not feel like a victim. You defeat yourself. There is a big difference between feeling defeated and being defeated and that comes from not putting yourself in a position of being the victim.”

Eshan wasn’t always a golfer; he picked up the sport during the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago when he was looking for something to do and came across a set of old golf clubs in the family’s garage. He started to hit practice golf (whiffle) balls in his backyard and was hooked, so he started watching YouTube videos to improve his swing and eventually began looking to play golf in high school.

He joined the Pine Creek High School golf team because Vanguard had no team, but felt like an outsider playing for a school he didn’t attend. Jain recruited classmates to help him form a Vanguard School golf team, drawing players from the disadvantaged neighborhood that surrounds the school. The team has improved its finish in the conference tournament every year.

Jain deepened his involvement with golf by volunteering for The First Tee of Southern Colorado, teaching younger disadvantaged players the physical and mental fundamentals of the game and acting as a mentor to new players.

“In return for my contributions to the golf community, the golfers with whom I played fortified my mental resilience and taught me the value of shared passion in friendship,” Jain said in his application for The Gazette Charities Foundation’s Best and Brightest scholarship. “It’s this reciprocity of service that defines my community’s success. I learned that community is most meaningful when each member has skin in the game.”

Holly Ellis, college counselor at The Vanguard School, said in her letter of recommendation that “Eshan is driven to excel at all things. Whether skiing black diamonds in the beautiful Colorado outdoors, playing the piano for others, leading his golf team … Eshan chooses to be all in. Through all the pain and adversity, Eshan has not only been able to remain engaged in his athletics, academics and extra curriculars, but has continued to excel at the highest levels.”