The Great White Sharko, also known as Tom Sharko, age 18, is what we in the modern world commonly refer to as a Renaissance man. Whether it is on the gridiron or in the classroom, “The Great White Sharko,” is capable of doing it all.

During his years at Ridge High School in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, Sharko excelled as both a student in the classroom, and an athlete on the football field playing the positions of defensive back and sometimes wide receiver. While attending Ridge High School, Sharko had quite the talent when it came to learning and executing architectural designs. Surprisingly enough however, he is not enrolled in the architecture program here at Virginia Tech. In addition to being caught up with school and sports, Tom is also very family orientated stating that his two biggest influences in life are his father and his brother.

Despite the busy schedules that all four members of the Sharko family have, involving work and school and sports, they all manage to make it home in time for dinner every night. Tom states that “at times my family is super busy, both of my parents work and my brother, Nick, is always out doing his thing, so we are all constantly running around, but we all help each other out whenever we need to and we are all very reliable to each others needs. Every night we have dinner together, we all have a great sense of humor and we’re all honest with each other.”

Sharko finds that playing sports and hanging out with his friends and family are his best methods for creating a fun time and relieving stress. He is not the religious type, and a word to the wise, please do not chew with your mouth around this young man. Sharko finds heavy chewing with one’s mouth open to be very disrespectful, making it his biggest pet peeve. Sharko looks for friends that possess the characteristics of having a good sense of humor while maintaining a high level of honesty.

After meeting and talking with “The Great White Sharko,” it became evident that he is not only very talented, but he has many aspirations and dreams including a passion to one day walk down the streets in New York City on Wall Street, as a stock broker. He also dreams to one day travel to Europe and explore the entire continent, visiting and experiencing the many different countries and cultures. Sharko is a fan of hard rock and metal music. His favorite bands include Rage Against the Machine and Metallica, and he says with a chuckle and a smirk on his face, “Basically anything with a power guitar in it.” His obsessions include a love for the game of ping-pong among other sports such as football, and women, as made evident from comments made by two of Sharko’s friends in Anthony D’Angio and Tyler Luckewicz who say, “Tom loooves the ladies.”

During interviews with Sharko’s friends and brother, it was easy to see just how amazing “The Great White Sharko” really is. To outsiders, Sharko may appear quiet and shy; this is certainly not the case according to those who know him best, in Sharko’s friends. When I had inquired about one single word to describe Tom Sharko, D’Angio and Luckewicz simultaneously responded with “shameless.” Stating that Sharko stands with absolutely no shame in saying what he wants as well as saying what he means when speaking to people and when paling around with friends.

While becoming more in depth with D’Angio and Luckewicz, they informed me that Sharko is not intimidated by what other people think, in addition to not being intimidated by rejection. According to Luckewicz, Sharko applied to Princeton University despite being told by everyone that it was not worth it because he would not be accepted.

I know what you are thinking, a guy with this much talent must not have a very good personality; think again. According to ones closest to him, “Tom is very funny, and he speaks his own very unique dialect. He also tends to display his very own power stance in which he moves one leg in front of the other and with a thrust of the pelvis looks more authoritative than ever,” says D’Angio.

Along with Sharko’s sense of humor comes a talent known only as backpack skinning. Skinning a backpack refers to an ancient trick in which one takes another person’s backpack, opens it up and removes all of its contents, then proceeds to turn the backpack inside and out and refill it with its original contents without the proprietor of the backpack knowing. According to D’Angio, “The Great White Sharko” has the ability to do it in possibly under 7 seconds. Believe it.

Upon the conclusion of my final interview with Tom’s brother, Nick Sharko, I grew to have even more respect for Tom. According to Nick, “Tom works hard at whatever he does and he is also very disciplined.” In one word from Nick describing his younger brother, “determined,” with a back up description of “disciplined.” I asked Nick what he was most proud of Tom for and he replied, “That Tom got into a good school because he works so hard and he deserves to do well for himself.” Interestingly enough, that was also what Sharko referred to as his greatest accomplishment to this point in his life.

Upon sitting down after the four interviews, it started to become more and more obvious that the title of this profile would have to be spectacular and really show how special Tom Sharko really is. Thus it also became obvious that Tom Sharko should be called “The Great White Sharko,” because he truly is that entity.

By Matt Chernick