TAMPA – The year was 2006.

While celebrating the first Super Bowl victory of his Pee Wee football career, 11-year-old Jeremiah Green was led away from his Robles Park Wildcats teammates and delivered grave news.

His mother, Sheila Williams, 44, had died after battling terminal breast cancer.

It was the second loss for Green of the year.  Just six months prior, his father, Alfonso Williams, 57, a Vietnam veteran, passed away after a long term illness that caused his kidneys to fail.

Suddenly Green, along with his eight brothers and sisters were left without parents, without support, but most of all, without a family.

His older sister, 19-year-old Shawnte, the fourth of the eight siblings, took him in and began to raise him.

That’s when Green went to work.

“They would always tell me before they died, that they wanted me to finish high school and go to college,” said Green. “Who knows?, I could be in jail right now if it weren’t for that. I wanted to make my parents proud.”

Green turned his grief into motivation for his future, and pushed himself to succeed not only on the field, but off of it too.

He started out on the defensive side of the ball on Hillsborough’s varsity football team is freshman year, playing the defensive back position. And while he only managed eight total tackles, seeing the field was more important to Green, now a junior, than anything.

“My dad never got to see me play because he was sick, my mom did maybe twice, but that’s it,” said Green. “Everytime I went out there, and I still do, I prayed, it’s like they are looking down on me.”

Green continued in his defensive role until the 2011 season. That’s when the fire was lit.

In the first round of the 6A playoffs, the Terriers were on the verge of being elimanated from contention by Largo. The Packers had continued to push Hillsborough back throughout the first half.

At halftime, the decision to use the 5-foot-9, 155-pound Green as the go to guy in the backfield was made.

After not touching the ball for the entire first 24 minutes of play, Green slowly came to be the catalyst for a second half comeback.

Then, with his team up by two points in the fourth quarter, he came through in the clutch with an unbelievable 78 yard touchdown run, filled with jukes and hurdles to be finished off with a sprint down the sideline for the insurance score and a 29-23 win for the Terriers.

“I’m just dedicated,” Green said about the game of football. He then added, “It’s bigger than the sport, (my parents) wanted me to succeed. I just want to carry my team.”

He went on to find the endzone eight times over the course of his junior season, but aside from X’s and O’s comes the A’s and B’s of the classroom.

Green wasn’t about to fulfil only half of his promise to Sheila and Alfonso. He was going to make an impact on his classmates too.

The dedication he showed to the sport, carried over to his academics where he has worked tirelessly to challenge himself with rigorous Advanced Placement (AP) courses and accumulate a 3.3 grade point average.

“It’s a positive role,” said Green. “I take AP classes and I do good in school.”

No one in Green’s family has ever attended college, or earned a degree. He wants to change that for his parents.

“It would mean so much (to them),” said Green.

While he’s away from the field, or the classroom, Green has excelled as a state finalist track star.  He earned medals in the long and triple jump categories last year and placed as one of the top Florida high school runners. He wants to keep that streak alive with a new goal for himself.

“I want to jump 50 feet in the triple jump,” said Green. “I also want to win a state medal.”

But even with his academic and athletic success, his parents are never out of his mind. They’re both still with him nearly six years after their passing.

Everyday they’re making sure he does his best.

“I see them watching me from up there,” said Green, who looks up to the sky in tribute during every game.

“They’re always watching me.”

Follow Jeff Odom on Twitter @JeffOLutzNews for North Hillsborough County prep sports news and more