April 3, 2003

Jeni Viernes Receives BYU Cougar Club Spirit of Sport Award

On April 2nd, Jeni (Willardson) Viernes was presented the BYU Cougar Club's Leona Holbrook Spirit of Sport Award, during BYU's Cougar Club Awards Banquet. The Spirit of Sport Award is given to the senior female athlete whose character and athletic performance has best exemplified the true spirit of athletics.

Viernes is a former Utah ODP player who began her ODP training playing up a year, and was a member of the '81 state ODP team from 1992-1998. She was named to the Region IV ODP pool in 1997 and 1998 and was coached by John DeWitt (University of New Mexico women's coach).

Viernes played on the U-12 Dynamite Club team which reached the Far West Regional semifinals in 1993 and won the Girls' U-15 Far West Regional Championship in 1996 -- the first Utah girls' team to do so. In 1999, Viernes played on the Devastation U-19 team that won Far West Regional Tournament in Bakersfield, and went on to compete in the U. S. National Youth Tournament in Orlando, Florida.

This past season, BYU won its 4th consecutive conference championship and Viernes was named as the Mountain West Conference Player of the Year and MWC Tournament MVP. The only senior on the team at the end of 2002, she was a team captain. She started every game at striker and had a stellar season, leading the team and conference with 17 goals (4 in the MWC Championship) and 5 assists. She was twice named MWC Player of the Week, and after the season was also named to the National Soccer Coaches Association of America's (NSCAA) All-West Region Team and Soccer Buzz Magazine's First Team West Region.

Viernes had inquiries playing professionally from the Women's United Soccer Association's (WUSA) San Diego Spirit, Philadelphia Charge and others, but declined to register for the 2003 draft, choosing to remain in Utah, where her husband Spencer will attend BYU's Law School next fall.

Viernes is now coaching a Celtic Storm U-14 girl's team, following in the footsteps of mentors who have helped in her success. "I very much appreciate the contributions of many individual ODP program and UYSA coaches, administrators and referees." said Viernes, "They have provided an environment of quality competition and the technical and tactical training that allowed me to develop skills, leadership capacity and a love of the game."