Former Trojan Milk swapping a helmet for law books

Editor’s Note: This is one of a series being made up with former high school athletes in Nye County.

FFootball has been good for TJ Milk, but he believes that when it’s time to move on, you move on.

So, although she has one year of eligibility left at the University of Jamestown in North Dakota, Milk plans to graduate on time and begin law school next fall.

“It’s time for me to move on, sad as that may be,” said Milk after a junior season in a red shirt that saw the Jimmies go 2-9.

Milk has become a starter in the defensive backfield this season and has appeared in 10 of 11 games. He was on 48 tackles, fifth on the team, and shared the team lead in solo tackles with 32.

“I missed a game with a concussion,” said Milk. “But for now, I’m fine. “

The past four years haven’t been the best for being a part of Jamestown football. The Jimmies posted records of 0-11, 0-11, and 3-8 heading into this year’s 2-9, and the program changed coaches after the 2018 season, bringing in the former 2009 class, Brian Mistro.

“This year and the past couple of years we’ve been in the middle of lost seasons, and it’s hard to change the culture once you’re stuck in that rut,” Milk said. “But I think we’ve grown a lot as a team over the season, and a lot of the games we lost were close games, and from our perspective, we should have won those games.”

Jamestown finished 2-7, tied for eighth in the 10-team Great Plains Athletic Conference, which included two top 10-ranked teams nationally, including Morningside, two-time National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics champion. . That second win was a Milk and his teammates won’t soon forget it, as Briar Cliff came to Jamestown on Senior Jimmies Day.

A team that had won just four games in Milk’s four seasons beat the Chargers for the second year in a row, scoring 17 points in the fourth quarter. Milk was Jamestown’s second-best tackle with seven points as the Jimmies ended the season with a win for the first time since 2015, 31-10.

“It was awesome,” Milk said. “Anyone who’s been around us would say it’s the best game we’ve played. It made everything even more special. You are going to miss that feeling of being with your teammates.

Ahead of the season, Milk, who was in her freshman year, planned to graduate on time and head to law school next fall. Nothing that happened during the season changed that plan.

“I think I always had the idea that I wanted to go to law school, but there were times when I realized how much I was going to miss it,” Milk said. “But I always stuck with the idea of ​​moving on and starting my law school.”

Mistro, who said over the summer that he wanted a full TJ Milks roster, had no illusions that Milk would stay in Jamestown and use up his last year of football eligibility.

“I always knew TJ was on the four-year plan and was planning to graduate,” Mistro said. “We give these guys the option to continue playing or to graduate and take the next step. He wanted to graduate, and I supported him. I don’t think anybody tried to talk him out of it or anything. He is a very motivated young man and he knows what he wants.

And what he wants is to come home and study law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Milk figure to know in January if this lies in its future.

“I kind of want to live in this area, so it would be nice to set things up,” he said. “And UNLV has one of the 50 or 60 law schools.”

Although Milk was ready to leave Jamestown and knew all season that he would be, his commitment to the Jimmies lasted until he was done playing.

“Personally, since it was the start of the first season, I think since the start of the season I’ve made a lot of improvements,” said Milk. “It comes with the experience and the comfort you feel. As the season wore on, I felt a lot better, in training and in games. My understanding of everything was so much better.

“At the end of the season I felt great which was another reason it was hard to let go. I felt like I had come this far, and that made it more difficult.

But the high school quarterback who left Pahrump weighing 150 pounds, lined his freshman year to train and grow as an athlete and played the defensive back at 205-210 pounds for his final season at Jamestown focuses on his life. It’s simply time to study law, with or without a year of eligibility remaining.

But don’t think that part of him won’t stay in Jamestown, and Milk points to the two wins the Jimmies have posted this season as his best college memories.

“The return home game against Concordia was pretty special,” he said. “We hadn’t won a game yet, and coming home was buzzing, and on top of that, the game was played in four overtime. It was special.

“And of course winning Senior Day was pretty special.”

Mistro thinks Milk is quite special too, and he expects good things from the former college football player.

“I believe whatever he does he will be successful, there is no doubt about it,” Mistro said. “Law school or whatever he chooses. “