Victor Trujillo - Outstanding Athletic Achievement

Victor Trujillo has always been a team player. As a multi-sport athlete at Glendale Community College in 1979, he was a kicker for the football team in the fall and played baseball for a short time in the spring. But his greatest success came in helping to lead the men's soccer team to the state championship and being named All-American and Southern California Conference Player of the Year in the process.

"That soccer team coached by Cherif Zein was a phenomenal group of athletes that could have beaten many NCAA Division I teams that year. We were an extremely close group, brought together by a great coach and achieved great things that I am extremely proud of to this day, “Trujillo said. "I went to Notre Dame High School and then to Brigham Young University and Cal State Northridge but Glendale is really the place I grew up as a person. It really helped me prepare for life after athletics."

Trujillo credits his friendship with former GCC runner Jack Demello with helping him make the decision to join the L.A. County Sheriff's Department in 1985. This year he celebrates his 30th anniversary at LASD where he has risen through the ranks and is now a Commander at the Pitchess Detention Center Facilities and oversees a staff of 1,000 and an inmate population of 7,000.

He credits his background in athletics as a prime reason why he has embraced one of the most challenging professions he could have chosen, and actually thrived within the system despite the negative publicity that comes with the job.

"Unfortunately, there are bad people in the world and it is my job, all of our jobs for those that wear a uniform and a badge and take an oath to protect and serve, to make sure that we do the best we can every day to protect them and ourselves," he said. "Rising up the ranks like I have from working the streets and the jails to being in administration is a lot like being an athlete moving up from level to level. You face challenges all the time and try to find solutions and be better for it and that's the way I try to look at things day to day."

One of the challenges that Trujillo faced at Glendale in 1979 was finding the time to play football and soccer for the Vaqueros in the same season. He recalls running from one practice or game to another, like he did one Saturday that fall when he played soccer for the Vaqs in Oxnard in the afternoon and then rushed to play football in Santa Barbara that night.

As the team's placekicker in football, Trujillo led the Vaqueros in scoring in 1979 with 31points,16 for 16 for extra points and five of 10 field goals. He said he wished he was doing more than kicking in football for GCC after a tremendous career as a runner at Notre Dame High, but several photos from that era show him making big hits after kickoffs, using his great speed to get down the field in a hurry.

But his passion was clearly in soccer, where he knew from a young age he wanted to be a professional and that was his driving focus no matter where he was and what he was doing. He helped lead the 1979 Vaqs to a 14-1-4 record and a 2-1 win over Santa Rosa for the state championship in a game decided by penalty kicks.