A special moment for T.J. and Derek Watt Friday night as Pewaukee School retired each player’s jersey to honor their terrific high school careers that served as the bedrock for a successful path into the NFL.
The Wisconsin Badgers’ football Twitter account, where both brothers played, shared this clip of the ceremony Friday evening. You can see Derek’s #20 on the left, T.J’s #16 on the right.
Late last month, the school announced it would be holding the ceremony so Steelers’ Nation was aware of the event. This likely coincides with the school’s annual high school graduation ceremony, too, a cool chance for those students to see two NFL’ers honored.
At Pewaukee, T.J. did everything his senior season. He threw for seven touchdowns, rushed for nine more, and picked up five sacks on defense. As a junior, he played more receiver and caught three touchdowns. In Watt’s final 2012 season, Pewaukee went 8-1, outscoring their opponent 306-110 and rolling through the season until a playoff loss to Catholic Memorial.
Derek had the better high school career, rushing for over 2600 career yards while recording 27 TFL defensively and even chipped in the return game with two career touchdowns, one kick and one punt. His senior year was similar to T.J’s, a 7-2 record that also ended in a postseason defeat to Catholic Memorial.
They join brother J.J. Watt a decade later. His jersey was retired by the school in 2013.
Here are some what appears to be very random highlights of T.J. in high school below. He sure played with an edge back then, too.
