Judge Memorial’s Jack Terrill enjoyed a full day of hiking in Boulder, Utah, on Thursday, he was receiving loads of text messages of congratulations.
It wasn’t until he got back home that he saw just what those congratulations were for. Terrill, a junior at Judge Memorial Catholic High School, was named the Gatorade Utah Boys Soccer Player of the Year. He is the first soccer player from the school to win the award.
“At first I thought my friends were just messing around,” Terrill told The Salt Lake Tribune. “I didn’t really know for sure, so I had to look it up myself. But then when I looked it up myself and I actually saw, I was pretty happy. … It was kind of pretty much just pure joy when I got it.”
Terrill led his team to its second consecutive 3A championship last month after staging a 3-2 comeback win over Summit Academy. The junior scored 29 goals and added eight assists in the 2018-19 season.
“This year just couldn’t have been better,” Terrill said. Terrill’s father, Kelly, found out via text message from the school’s athletic director Scott Platz while in a work meeting, he said.
Kelly Terrill, also the coach at Judge Memorial, said he’s proud that Terrill won the award both as a dad and as a coach.
“It was nice to get that honor for a student who is coming from a smaller school,” Kelly Terrill said. “He is a standout player. It’s hard to get that attention.”
Terrill joins a slew of famous players who have won the Gatorade award for either boys or girls soccer. The list includes Alexi Lalas, Abby Wambach, Matt Besler and Mallory Pugh. Many of the award recipients are usually seniors in high school. But Terrill being a junior and winning the award makes winning it sweeter, he said.
