Insider: Drack's surprise prize

Josh Drack sat at Tuesday night's All-Western Athletic Conference men's soccer banquet, thinking about how the night was going to end with him taking a picture with his friend holding the WAC Freshman of the Year plaque.

Drack was certain that Nevada-Las Vegas' Marco Gonzalez would win the award until the moment Drack was announced the winner.

"Man, I told you that you'd win it," Gonzalez, a friend since youth soccer, told Drack.

Drack responded, "Nah, I was not expecting that at all."

The WAC coaches thought otherwise of Drack's debut season. The Chandler Hamilton High School graduate adjusted to a new role with 11 points, which ranked second on the team. He also was named All-WAC honorable mention.

After taking in his honor haul, Drack shook the hand of each of his Lopes teammates to thank them and then thanked his GCU coaches before telling his parents as he boarded the team bus.

Drack's father, Ricardo, signed to play professional soccer in his native Chile when he was 17. His pro career ended a year later because of a broken leg, but he passed down a passion for soccer to the four children that he and his wife, Masayo, raised.

"He was super proud of me," Drack said. "It was nice. It felt good."

Drack wound up in Arizona even though he was born in Hawaii, where his father was working in a store when he met mother shopping there during her vacation from Japan. A few months later, she returned to Hawaii and they married.

Drack has a worldly appreciation -- he is fluent in Japanese and understands Spanish. But he kept his soccer local when he chose to move crosstown to GCU this year.

"Part of the reason to come here was to put GCU on the map and make a name for ourselves," Drack said before the Lopes' WAC Tournament debut Wednesday night at UNLV. "Making the tournament in our first year of eligibility is a big deal. I'm excited about the award, but I can't be too happy about it because the team comes first."

Drack accepted that team-first approach when he made the shift from a high school and club career of primarily being an attacking midfielder in the center of the field to moving to an outside wing in the Lopes' system.

He still had his moments in the limelight, such as an overtime win against UC Riverside in which Drack scored his first collegiate goal and then assisted on the game-winner in front 1,626 fans at GCU Stadium.

"I was always used to being the guy who did everything and put the team on my shoulders," Drack said. "As a freshman since we have Niki on our team, I had to do my role in order for the team to succeed. It made me play in a different way. I had ups and downs, but I've learned a lot and I feel like I've grown as a person and a player."

Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.

Grand Canyon University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Josh Drack

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