With 14 years of soccer experience under his belt, senior Jack Dooher finishes his last season of high school soccer, and possibly even his soccer career as a whole.

“There have definitely been times when it has been more hard work than fun, but at the end of the [day], I always stuck around because of my love for the game,” Dooher said. “It’s become really important to me over the year because of how hard I’ve worked, so to continue to play and have success when I play is really rewarding.”

Starting soccer at five years old and continuing throughout the years, Dooher said it has not just been a hobby, but also a learning experience.

“I definitely learned discipline,” Dooher said. “I have had a lot of soccer coaches, and the one constant you need is to be willing to work as a team or as an individual. It has also taught me the value of working harder than others around me because with everyone I played soccer with, it was always a competition for playing time, and so everyone always tried to raise their skills to the next level.”

Soccer has been part of Dooher’s day-to-day routine for his high school career, but he said that his mindset going into his last season changed from past years. 

“We had fewer returning varsity players than in past years, the few of us that did return took on very big roles as leaders in the team and the new players coming up had a lot of work to put in so we could be where we needed to be when the season started,” Dooher said. “Once the season got started, it was really a matter of doing the things we prepared for. We just won games and never really looked back.” 

Knowing that this season was going to be difficult, Dooher said that he wanted to make sure he put in all he could into the team, especially as he gave up his captain armband.

“Being a four-year varsity player, regardless of whether or not I was a captain, I knew being a leader on the team was going to be important,” Dooher said. “I just always tried to focus on the rest of the team while still focusing on my part individually.”

Not only has soccer been a big part of Dooher’s life, but academics have posed to be important to him as well. Throughout high school, Dooher has been in 21 preAP/AP classes, and this year he is taking five AP classes.

“In all parts of life, the lessons I learned from soccer applied and discipline and hard work carried out to other parts of my life, so applying those things was almost like second nature,” Dooher said. “I put so much effort into my academics because I was always pushed by my parents to do well, and my education was always very important to me.”

With school being an important part of Dooher’s life, he decided to prioritize his academics in college, rather than continuing with soccer.

“It was hard to make the decision to pick a more academic based college, because so much of my time has been taken up by soccer,” Dooher said. “Going with the route that would take that away, I knew would leave a big hole in my life, but I also knew once I got to college I would want to be able to focus on my academics even more, and get involved with other activities.”

Dooher plans to go to college at Texas A&M in College Station with a major in engineering.

“I enjoyed my calculus and physics classes last year, so I took higher level calculus and physics classes and I still enjoyed them,” Dooher said. “So when I applied this year, I decided I wanted to pursue something that would allow me to take those classes in college.”