Judgment Day

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

On Aug. 26 Terrance updated his Facebook status message: “Terrance Motley only has ONE WEEK to prepare.” The countdown continued through the week: “Terrance Motley is 5 days away.” “Terrance Motley is 3 days away from destiny.” “Terrance Motley has 2 days. Judgment day cometh.” “Terrance Motley [has] one more day.” “Terrance Motley: TODAY IS THE DAY.”

The day in question was Sept. 2, the first day of school. But the countdown was for something that loomed much larger in Terrance’s mind: BYU football walk-on tryouts. Amidst his navigations of campus and class syllabi, Terrance found himself lined up in BYU’s Indoor Practice Facility with dozens of other former high school football players who had not been recruited to play for BYU but wanted to take a shot.

After a series of drills, coaches made their evaluations and soon posted the results. As Terrance walked up to the sheet, he was repeating in his mind, “I probably didn’t make it. I didn’t make it.” As he scanned the list of players who had made the team, his name was not there. But then he looked below at the list of people who had been invited to participate in the lifting class, and he saw the words Terrance Motley. Even though he had not made the team, he knew the coaches were interested.

“The coaches liked what they saw,” he says, “but they didn’t have any offensive line spots open.” So they invited Terrance to work out with BYU’s strength and conditioning staff three days a week at 6 a.m. to add to his 280 lbs. frame and prepare himself to possibly join the team later that year or after his mission. And that was enough to make Terrance’s day.