Utah
How the Utah Jazz Scholarship program is helping students seek higher education
SALT LAKE CITY — The path to higher education looks different for everyone. Wil Thomas went to high school at Timpanogos High, where he played baseball, and Janet Lopez was a Student Body Officer at Taylorsville High, but both knew higher education was a step they wanted to take.
“It was kind of something that was always pushed on me from my mom since I was young,” Lopez said.
“The way I see education is it is something that will help me get further,” Thomas affirmed.
As high school upperclassmen, both were thinking about the stress and pressures that come with college — including the financial stress. Then they heard about the Utah Jazz Scholarship Program.
The program provided a four-year full cost of attendance scholarship to 114 Utah high school students — one for every Jazz win from the 2020/21 and 2021/22 NBA seasons. 100% of the recipients are from an underrepresented group.
Wil applied as the class of 2021, Janet as the class of 2022 — at first, they didn’t know their chances, then they were called for a second interview. “The screen goes on in the locker-room and we’re just watching the video, and then Donovan Mitchell was the one that said, ‘Congratulations, all of you guys have gotten the Utah Jazz scholarship,’ and tears just started coming out of my eyes,” Lopez remembered.
“I was really nervous about that second interview, then I got a FaceTime from Royce O’Neal, and then he told me I actually got the scholarship,” Thomas recalled.
Thomas is now finishing up his senior year at Utah Valley University, and Janet is a junior at the University of Utah.
“You’re starting this chain of like future students, future cousins, family members, friends that are going to want to pursue college because you’re in that position and they know it’s possible,” Lopez said.
The financial aspect of the scholarship has been life-changing, but so has the additional mentorship, support, and networking the Jazz organization has provided. “The amount of connections that I’ve made is unbelievable, and I don’t think I would have made them without the scholarship,” Thomas said.
Of course, there are also some fun perks of being a Jazz scholar — like going to the games. “I remember the first time they gave us dinner and everything like that, my dad was like a little kid, like woah this is so cool,” Lopez said.
Two Utah Jazz scholars have already graduated, 15 are part of the class of 2025, 40 are expected to graduate next year, and 50 in 2027 and beyond.
Wil and Janet’s stories are just two examples of what happens when hard work meets incredible opportunity. “If it’s going to happen it’s going to happen, but also it doesn’t just happen by itself you have to put in the work and effort to actually get it to happen,” Lopez said.
SALT LAKE CITY — A California man in Utah, as part of his duties with the National Guard, is accused of trying to solicit sex from a young teenager.
Joshua Ruben Rodriguez, 29, of Fresno, was charged Tuesday in 3rd District Court with attempted rape of a child, a first-degree felony, and enticement of a minor, a second-degree felony.
The investigation began when an agent with the Utah State Bureau of Investigation posed as a 13-year-old girl on a “popular social media site … in an attempt to locate and apprehend adults attempting to have sexual contact with children,” according to charging documents.
On April 16, Rodriguez sent the agent a message — believing he was talking to a teen girl — that stated, “I’ll be direct with you, I would like to get to know you and (have sex with) your mind into a daze to where you feel like a woman,” according to charging documents.
When the “girl” asked if he had a problem with her age, Rodriguez replied, “I don’t have a problem with your age,” the charges state.
The agent told Rodriguez to meet at an apartment complex in Salt Lake County where the girl lived, claiming her mother would be gone. When Rodriguez arrived, he was taken into custody, the charges state.
“(Rodriguez) does not have ties to Utah. He is a resident of Fresno, California. (He) was in town as part of his military service with the California National Guard,” prosecutors stated in charging documents while requesting he be held without bail pending trial.
ST. GEORGE, Utah (KUTV) — One person was hospitalized at the St. George Regional Hospital after a car rolled and caught fire just south of the Utah-Arizona border.
The Beaver Dam and Littlefield Fire Department in Arizona said its crews responded to the crash near the Black Rock Road exit – roughly two miles south of the state border – on Sunday night.
Upon arrival, crews put out the car fire and found the driver had left the scene. A single occupant, who was able to get out of the car on their own, was transported to the hospital by a Beaver Dam ambulance.
MORE | Crashes
Their condition has not been publicly released.
Details on what led to the crash and the condition of the driver were not immediately available.
The Beaver Dam and Littlefield Fire Department said law enforcement investigated the scene.
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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Jazz missed out on the NBA Playoffs, but still scored a big win thanks to a coin flip.
In Monday’s tiebreaker coin flip to determine who had the fourth-worst record in the league last season, the Jazz came out winners over the Sacramento Kings, who had the same 22-60 record.
Had the Jazz lost the coin flip, they would have been fifth in NBA Draft Lottery odds. Only the worst four teams are guaranteed to remain within the top eight of the lottery.
If Utah had fallen to fifth, there would have been the chance they could have dropped out of the top 8 teams in the lottery, and owed the draft pick to Oklahoma City, which was top-8 protected in a previous trade.
The Jazz now have an 11.5 percent chance to win the first overall pick in the NBA Draft Lottery, which is scheduled for Sunday, May 10.
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