Career paths can take on many forms. For some it is a straight shot to being what you always wanted to be. For others, it is a course full of twists and turns. Choosing what you want to do for the rest of your life is really quite scary when you have no safety net to fall back on. 

We all hear the saying that if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. For some of us, we don’t know what we love until we see it and feel it. For me, athletics was the one thing that I was passionate about. I studied different professional players, and learned the intricacies of sports that I didn’t even play because I was fascinated by the strategy.

So it is pretty easy, right? I go through school and get a job in sports. That’s not really how it happened.  In my senior year of undergraduate school, I did an internship as a lobbyist at the state capitol. One of my clients was a foster care agency, and the more time I spent with them, the more I knew that I had to fight for children that could not fight for themselves. 

After receiving my undergraduate degree in 2004, I went to work for a non-profit that worked with youth put into foster care. I started as a communication specialist, where I would write stories about these children in their best light to find their forever families. I knew that I could help change a child’s life. 

After several years, I became the lobbyist for the foster care agency. I was now the one responsible for changing laws that impacted the children in the foster care system. I had high hopes and dreams that I could be the one that found a solution to a broken system, and the more I tried to get lawmakers to see the issues, the more barriers were put in front of me. It was a rewarding, albeit extremely frustrating few years, and I knew that I needed to find a better way to affect the lives of even more children. 

It was a change in focus where I joined the Leadership Team as the Director of Marketing for an organization that served children with severe autism and other special needs. It was also around this time that I received a call from my high school alma mater to take over the soccer program. Life has a funny way of throwing curveballs when you are sitting on an 0-2 fastball. Now I just had to figure out the logistics of working full time and taking over a soccer program. 

Two years into my coaching career, I realized that the game had evolved from when I played. I knew that to be successful I needed to be a student of the game, and in 2016 I enrolled in CUI’s Master’s of Coaching and Athletic Administration. I made the decision to pursue my master’s degree in order to give that knowledge directly to the children I serve. It was during these classes that I found who I wanted to be as a coach. 

In my last semester at CUI, I was called and offered the CEO position of an organization that served children removed from their homes due to abuse and neglect. It was an incredible opportunity that I could not turn down. I  had to balance life with my wife and three children, finish my degree, coach high school soccer and start a new job as leader of a non-profit organization. It was difficult, but my faith pushed me through the tough times and my family was my rock when I needed them most. 

The soccer program I took over started in 1994. Prior to my coaching, they had won one regional championship in 2006. Since taking over that program and after graduation from CUI, we have won two additional regional championships (2019 & 2021), won the school’s first ever divisional title (2021) and took the team to the state Final Four for the first time in school history (2021). Prior to obtaining my coaching degree, my record was 15-36-1, and my record after completing CUI’s MCAA program is 52-23. 

It was a complete shift in mindset, as we built our program’s foundation on trust and love. My life has been completely changed, as I have been able to make a positive impact on the lives of hundreds of youth that I am fortunate to lead. 

This editorial from Concordia alumni Dusty Buell is part of an ongoing series published in partnership with the Office of Career Development and Vocation. Ready to start writing your own professional journey? Contact Director of Career Development and Vocation Mariah Lucas at mariah.lucas@cui.edu.

Tags: alumnus, Careers and Vocation, Education

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About Dusty Buell

Concordia '18

More articles by Dusty Buell