The Lake Mead Academy football stadium lights never turned off. 

Head coach Nate Oishi rigged them to shine in the desert night for hours after he drove home. Then-freshman quarterback Jerry Meyer III threw routes on the empty field to his father, whom everyone called ‘J2.’ J2 even bought some receiver gloves, but still had to ice his hands after these after-hours sessions.

“When an NFL guy or college quarterback throws, you can hear the spiral coming off their finger,” Oishi said. “Jerry is the first person I’ve heard throw, where you can hear the whistle on the ball, as a ninth grader.” 

Meyer always wanted to train, and his father always ensured that he had the opportunity to. He’d drive his son from Las Vegas to Lubbock for the Texas Tech football camp. Lake Mead had a closed practice policy, but sometimes Oishi caught J2 crouched beside a bush to watch Jerry throw.

Before he moved to Texas, Meyer was set to play basketball with his wide receivers. Then, they wouldn’t have an excuse not to throw with him after practice. He finished first in every wind sprint.

“There’s a saying, ‘Leaders lead from the front,’” Oishi said. “Jerry leads from the front. No one works harder than Jerry.”

That work ethic propelled him to break the Nevada state single-season passing touchdown record with 58 and lead Lake Mead to its first state championship in program history. Now, Meyer’s entrenched himself as Waxahachie’s starting quarterback.

The first day Meyer arrived, Waxahachie wide receivers coach Darius Terrell introduced himself and said little else, wanting to see how the freshman integrated himself with the team. Meyer walked through the weight room and asked every guy’s name and position. He told each of them that he throws on these days and at these times if they were an offensive skill player interested in working with him outside of school. Terrell hadn’t even seen that from seniors.

“It probably took him two days to gain every single kid in this program’s respect,” Terrell said.

His teammates have sensed his intensity before playing a regular season game with him. Meyer is open about the chip on his shoulder. But he's already won a championship and broke a state record as a freshman. Where does the chip come from?

“Being doubted my whole life,” Meyer said. “Telling me I’m too small, too short, and I can’t play.”

Meyer is six feet and 170 pounds. But he was undersized as a seventh grader, and people on the youth football circuit started telling him that he might be too small to play quarterback and that maybe he could switch to safety.

It didn’t matter to Oishi how big Meyer was; he knew how badly the quarterback wanted to outwork anyone in the state. 

His intuition was reaffirmed after the second game of Meyer’s freshman season. Lake Mead hosted La Jolla Country Day, a solid private school program from San Diego. It never rains in Vegas, but that day brought three inches of precipitation on the field. Meyer and his receivers struggled in a 34-21 loss. Oishi wondered how the freshman would respond and if it’d affect his confidence. Meyer asked him in the locker room if they could schedule La Jolla Country Day again. For tomorrow.

Lake Mead didn’t lose the rest of the season.

“From that point on, we punted like three times,” Oishi said.

Meyer came to Waxahachie for the chance to play in District 11-6A against Duncanville, DeSoto and Cedar Hill. He’ll throw to fellow 2027 standout JayQuan Snell, who holds 12 offers, along with two other Division I prospects in Kohen Brown and Tristian Gardner.

“We’re as talented as we’ve been across the board,” Terrell said. “Whoever we throw it to, there’s somebody that can do damage. And we’ve got the triggerman to do it.”