Meet Terrance Motley ('14)

Posted by Peter B. Gardner (BA ’98), Senior Editor

Hometown and High School: Albuquerque, N.M.; Cibola High School

Applied To: Arizona State, Oregon, Utah, and BYU

Major Plans: Broadcast journalism

Interests and Achievements: Terrance has always been a BYU fan; played high school football and was selected to a New Mexico all-star team as an offensive lineman.

Home School: For Terrance Motley ('14), trips to BYU's campus—for football camp and Especially for Youth—always felt like coming home. And why not? Terrance was born in Provo and lived there until he was 18 months before his family moved away and eventually landed in Albuquerque, N.M. But the draw to Provo as he approached graduation was more than just a desire to return to his old toddling grounds. "It's always been a dream of mine to be [at BYU] because of the atmosphere," he says. "It was just really cool to be in a place where you could learn and feel the Spirit at the same time."

And it didn't hurt that offensive lineman Terrance grew up a Cougar football fanatic. "At first it was the 'outcasted-ness' of liking BYU that interested me," he says. With his dad and just about everyone around him being die-hard University of New Mexico fans, Terrance's stance constituted a mild form of rebellion. And, though he wasn't recruited to play football for BYU, Terrance was eager to take a shot at walking on to Bronco Mendenhall's squad. "Football," he says, "is my passion."

Do Your Homework! "I was a decent student," says Terrance of his high school career. "But I kind of struggled my freshman and sophomore year. Then I started getting it together." He worried that a slow start would keep him from getting into BYU, so his acceptance letter was especially gratifying.

But as he prepared to go on his own at BYU, Terrance worried that he'd have similar struggles: "At home, I always have someone breathing down my neck: 'Do your homework! Do your homework! Do your homework!'" He says that, most of the time, this was motivation enough to be serious about his studies. He knows at BYU it'll be up to him to choose between homework and play. "There [will be] a lot of opportunities to play," he says, "but sometimes you've got to get your studies done."