Hey, it's another great day to get better. I'm Toby Brooks. Becoming Undone is the podcast for those who dare bravely, risk mightily, and grow relentlessly. Join me each week as I invite a new guest to examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place. I grew up in rural southern Illinois. I hate that word, rural. It's hard to say. But it was a tiny high school where I graduated with less than 40 classmates. Even though our school was small, we were pretty well known in the area for having a really good marching band. Now that might seem odd to many of you who equate marching bands with football, because our school was so small we didn't even have a team. But we marched. Parades, festivals, we competed toe-to-toe with schools sometimes triple or quadruple our size. And looking back, that whole program was built by two band directors, Dennis Clay and Alan Brickhouse. They were talented, selfless, and willing to do anything they could to help us become successful. Unfortunately, it was only after they both passed away that I bothered to really learn about what they had accomplished as musicians. Both had been trained on pretty much every instrument, and they taught both band and choir, Mr. Clay at the junior high level, Mr. Brickhouse at the high school. Mr. Clay had served in the U.S. Navy, while Mr. Brickhouse had traveled the world as a member of the U.S. Army playing the trombone. But here's the tragic part, both of these guys had life experiences and stories of serving and playing and growing literally all over the globe, but I never asked either one of them to tell me about it. You know, we tend to be pretty self-centered, especially when we're younger, at least I did. It never crossed my self-absorbed mind to ask either one of them to tell me about themselves or what they've done. But they'd done a lot and I missed it. For McKinney High School athletic trainer Dustin Emory, it started as a life of athletic success. A member of the 2007 Texas 5A state champion football ULIS Trinity Trojans, Dustin was a four-sport athlete in high school. However, a torn ACL and a life-threatening blood clot nearly derailed his career and even threatened his life. But he was given the opportunity to keep playing collegiately at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. From there, our paths finally crossed when he decided to hang up his cleats and go to grad school, when he moved to Lubbock to study athletic training at Texas Tech. Today, he serves as a critical member of a McKinney High School athletics program that consistently turns out D1 athletes like few places in the world. But for many of his athletes, he's probably just Coach Emory. They don't realize that he's been there. He's done that. He's not just that jacked CrossFit guy patrolling their sidelines with his trademark cap on backwards and sunglasses on. He's not even just the TikTok star they love to watch in their spare time. The truth is he's driven, committed, and a caring professional who doesn't just hope his patients get better. He's lived it and he's better for it. Join me for episode 32, Dustin Emory, Remember the Name. My guest today is my first former student to join me on the show. He and I have a wonderful relationship, still communicate regularly, and I know just enough about his story to know that he would be a great guest for the show. So joining me today is Dustin Emory. Welcome, Dustin. Hey, thanks, Doc. How you been? I've been good. So, Dustin, you're now the athletic trainer at McKinney High School, just outside of Dallas, and you were a student of mine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center as an athletic training student. You had a highly successful career coming up through sport, all through high school, through college, and some some setback along the way. So the question I always ask starting off was what did you want to be growing up and why? So initially growing up I thought like architecture and engineering. I liked math, I liked numbers, I liked building things, and then you know I like most like most stories for some of us that that day came where there was that season ending injury that brought sports into play and I knew my athletic trainer I met her. I met them between Doc Hughes and Doc Pruitt. I've met them a couple of cases but nothing crazy. The January 29 2008 happened for my ACL and the rest of kind of history. I spent nine months, nine to 11 months with them. And so going between athletic training and physical therapy, I was like, man, I really like this. I like the ability to be around sports and continue to do the rehab process. And I loved being in our athlete trainers anatomy class too. And so for me, it came down to, and this is something that's really piqued my interest. And so I thought physical therapy was kind of the route I was gonna take, had some setbacks in the classroom and realized, you know what? And then a couple of just a couple of shadowing at some PC clinics and realized, I don't think I really want to work general population. And so when the grades didn't hit and I decided I really didn't want general population, I realized athletic training was sitting there waiting. And it was one of those things that it just kind of, I didn't realize it until I got into college. I was like, man, this would be great to get to do on a daily basis. So that was kind of the way it went. It was kind of one way over here and then it was way over here and it's like okay this is where you know kind of settled. Not really settled man. I've fallen in love with it and you know you got to kind of watch that journey and we'll kind of talk about it too. But it's been fun. I don't I haven't looked back since passing my BOC. So it's been a quite a journey. So architecture to injury to athletic training, physical therapy. Let's take it back. Let's start at you growing up as a youngster, a four sport athlete in high school, a state champion in 2007 in football. So start at the beginning. Talk me through little Dustin growing up. So I have a dad who's in education and I have a mom who's in healthcare. So the best of both worlds, ironically, is kind of where I've ended and started playing soccer. Tell people all the time I attribute the athleticism I had growing up, the coordination I had to me starting soccer early. And I'm kind of seeing it with my own almost three year old now, how that develops. And so my love for sports, my love for just being outside and doing the things that I do and did was where that all started. And so, kind of started with soccer and move on to baseball. My dad being a coach at the time, I always watched football. I'm like, no way, no way, no how I did not want to get hurt. I was scared of getting hurt. I was so afraid of getting hit. And I told my dad, I said, never, never could be me. Never will do it. Got to about fourth grade, started hanging out with a bunch of my buddies and we played basketball on the street. And I'm like, why don't you play? And I'm like, I never really thought about it. My dad, ironically, was on the state runner up team for 1A or 2A in Texas in 1986. My uncle was an all state basketball player with offers to go anywhere he wanted to in basketball. And so I was like, sure, why not? So I went out fourth grade, gave it a try, I loved it. And then I guess fifth grade, I had a bunch of my buddies who were also playing basketball and baseball with me like, hey, why don't you try football now? I'm like, man, I don't know. So I went out, I was like, man, I'm gonna play receiver. You know, I was tall, long, I was bigger than everybody, taller than everybody, so I was in off staff for the most. And so I'm like, I'm gonna play receiver. And, you know, we're doing the tryouts and the coach that was supposed to be throwing had broke his arm so he couldn't throw. So he asked me to come throw. So I just started launching balls. I'm gonna put my way in right there. If you're a regular listener on this show, you know that sometimes stuff just happens. We succeed or we fail. There's a cause and an effect. Sometimes, situations, opportunities, they just align and they create this environment that helps us or hinders us on our way toward success. As legendary Olympic ice hockey coach Herb Brooks once said, or at least in the movies he did, great moments are born from great opportunities. Now Dustin's first ever football tryout might not be something sports historians reference when talking about great sports moments. But the fact that a coach who would have been throwing the ball had broken his arm, and a young, reluctant-to-be-at-the-tryout-in-the-first-place Dustin was close enough to get the coach's order to take over those duties, well, it set his athletic life, and maybe even his life's work as a sports medicine professional, in a new direction. Although he didn't finish his career as a QB, it's safe to say that those early experiences in the backfield running and throwing the football helped the multi-sport athlete eventually come to love the game. Fifth grade you have no form you don't really know what's going on at that point in time we didn't have trainers like they do now in terms of being able to to work those kind of skill sets and so they watched me and then all of a sudden like hey you're gonna play quarterback and I was like okay you get to touch the ball every play all right I get to run away if somebody's trying to hit me. Cool. So, you know, we kind of fell into that role. And then, you know, with dad being an administrator, schools kind of changed growing up. I went to every single class vacation of A in the state of Texas. And in order to, I went 1A, one of the smallest school to 5A at the time in US Trinity. And so I got up to U.S. Trinity and started realizing there are a lot of people about my size at that level. And our coach was like, hey, you're going to play outside linebacker. You're going to be a special teams guy for us. And so I played outside linebacker in safety and then it was a kick and punt returner. Got brought up to the varsity baseball team as a sophomore, playing outfield, third base, shortstop. Got brought up to the basketball team for varsity as a sophomore for playoffs. And so, you know, my journey was a lot of different things, having to work my way up and kind of realizing that I was really good at one place, and then I went to a bigger school and was a small fish in a really large pond, but was one of the few athletes, and I really pride myself on that, that I was one of the few athletes to be able to play four sports at the time. And so it's unheard of, really, and it's funny watching professional athletes now because you know Pat Mahomes, everybody's like, oh Pat played, you know, football, basketball, and baseball. Well, you know, I look at my roster right now for football guys of 202 kids and I've got none that I don't think, I don't think any of them play three sports. Most of them it's football and track. We've got a couple football, basketball guys, but like, you know, that ability to get to do those things growing up that I did growing up and being able to stay in love with it and continue to fall in love with it and be around it was just so great. And I didn't have any brothers or sisters, so I didn't really have anybody to compete against at home. So I spent a lot of time competing against my dad and trying to get better with him. And then once I found the sport, it was an easy way to make friendships and create those bonds and have some brothers and some families and friends to be around all the time. And so, you know, younger me was pretty cocky and arrogant because I always felt like I was bigger. And I mean, I can't, I'm not going to say that older me is not the same way because a lot of people that know me will tell you that, and you kind of know from grad school that, you know, I carry everything with me and, you know, I pride myself in who I am. And so that started, I think, just from the ability to be that bigger kid and be that athlete, that better athlete than most as I was growing up. And so, you know, I think that played a big role in kind of my development, but then the move to that big pond and being the small fish really kind of brought me down to earth, kind of shot me back to the real world that, hey, it's not just you. It's not just, you know, I'm competing against a lot of other people. So, you know, young me, young me didn't realize it at the time, older me realizes it now that, you know, it was real good for my development. It was real good to kind of force myself to understand that, hey, you know, it's not bigger than you. It's more than just about, you know, Dustin, as much as it is about the team and the people you're around. And, you know, I learned a lot about that in our 07 state championship run for football that, you know, it's way bigger than just the one person that's on the roster. Yeah, let's talk about that 2007 ULIS Trinity team, shall we? Most people have seen and or read Friday Night Lights, not the TV series, but the book and the movie about that storied Permian Panthers and their football dynasty in the late 80s. They haven't made any movies about Dustin's team, ULIS Trinity, located just north between Dallas and Fort Worth. Not yet, anyway. However, they were good, 15 and one good, in the largest division of Texas high school football. In a 2016 article published in the legendary Texas football news source Dave Campbell's Texas Football, writer Mike Craven provided some speculation that in a fantasy matchup between the Mighty Panthers from Odessa and the Trojans from Trinity, Dustin and his teammates might actually come out on top. Although Trinity's lone loss on the season came at the hands of those same Permian Panthers. Trinity's defense that year was suffocating. The only time they allowed more than 17 points on the whole season was in a double overtime victory over Plano in the state semifinals. And they won the championship game in the Alamo Dome 13-10, holding Converse Judson scoreless in the second half. So yeah, they were kind of a big deal. Well I know when I'm having students introduce themselves, I always lead off with, you know, brag on yourself, say something that you wish would come up in conversation. I remember you mentioning that you were a state champion. But I also know that high schoolers tend to be so self-centered, like we don't ever think in high school about what our teachers or administrators, like the lives that they live beforehand. So for any of your student athletes who are listening right now, put some respect on your name for sport athlete, state champion, state game, special teams, player of the game, academic all this like you, you were a highly decorated athlete and that translated into an opportunity at the next level. So you end up at Hardin-Simons. Prior to that, had you had any setbacks athletically or had it all been pretty much a smooth ride? You know that the up until, so you know everything ran smooth up until that state game in 07, or up through that state game in 07, because we won state December 22nd of 2008. I tore my ACL and that was my initial setback. On January 29th, it's just funny because I was sitting here the other day, I'm like, man, it's February 7th already. I'm 15 years since I had my ACL surgery, which changed the entire course of everything that I had ever dreamed of doing, wanted to do. That was that first initial setback through high school, right? I had to really learn to be a cheerleader and I had to really learn to be about those around me and support the people around me. I spent so much time in the athletic training room and then when I got released from my ACL surgery, did my capstone project over thoracic outlet syndrome, right, and the conversation that you and I had sat down when I told you, hey, I wanna do more research on this, I wanna go into this, when you asked me why, you know, I was able to go into that, you know, three months post-op from ACL surgery, being told, hey, you can go back to the weight room, start doing these things, and bam, find out I have thoracic outlet syndrome, and that I've got a blood clot in my shoulder, and another eye-opening setback of like, oh my gosh, here's something that could potentially kill me if I'm not careful. Spending my junior year of spring break in the NICU with a bunch of two, three-year-olds that are actually having legit issues. I mean, not that mine wasn't legit, but like really seeing what they were going through and what they were struggling with. And, you know, I'm over here thinking, man, I'm this fully healthy athlete, you know, 17 years old, I'm athletic as can be. It was one of those things that that was, you know, that first set back there really taught me that I had to do a lot to be a better teammate and I had to do a lot to be a better person. Working with my athletic trainer, working with my physical therapist, they, they worked with so many different people, right? I didn't think that after that I was gonna get an opportunity, right? A lot of kids worry about that season ending injury. A lot of kids worry about, if I do this, what's gonna happen to this offer? If this happens, what's gonna happen to that offer? What's gonna happen to my career if I don't? And I had athletic trainers who told me to stay the course. Like, they're gonna find you if they want you. They're gonna give you that ability to be who you are. And so I got that visit from Harden Simmons there towards the end of my senior year. And they said, hey, we want you to come out. We want you to continue your career playing football. And the best part about it was they asked me, they said, what do you want to be in five years? They didn't ask me about my football career. They asked me, what do you want to be? Who do you want to be? What impact do you want to make? And that sold me immediately on Hardin-Simmons University. And like I said, I thought physical therapy was going to be the place. And so I go out there, not paying attention. I ended up with like 16 or 18 hours for that spring, that fall semester in the middle of football season, thinking this is gonna be easy. I can make this work. And a guy who went from a 392 GPA in high school dropped down to like a 218. I was barely eligible to play college football. Barely eligible to play college football. Didn't know how to study, had no idea what I was doing. Realized that that there set me back on the physical therapy side of it because I wasn't going to have the GPA to ever make it into a doctoral program at that point. Those two injuries and that grade check were some major things where it's like, hey, you got to realize there's more to what you're doing than what I was really doing. I wasn't putting in the effort. I wasn't putting the time to study and hone in my craft like I should to be where I wanted to be. And so that's been one of the biggest things. And you know, once we get to, you know, you saw me that first summer and that first fall of grad school, it was the same thing. It was reality living itself all over again. Like, man, am I going to be able to pull this out? Am I going to be able to be what I want to be and do what I want to do? Those are some hard, tough conversations that I had to have with myself, professors, and with my advisors just to get to where I'm at today. And so super thankful for all of them because man, yeah, that was a moment that I went from being used to being successful to being like, hey, you're borderline about to fail. Yeah, right. And not for me, you know, like I don't handle failure well, I don't handle setbacks well, I don't handle not doing well. Like I'm just, I'm not, I'm one of those people like I'm all about whether or not I can be successful. And that rides a lot on how I do personally. There's an old adage that says that a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. And I love that thought that our adversity trains us to be stronger. And it trains us as healthcare providers working with athletes. You now have connection points. You have a way to connect with your patients that if you had never been injured or if you had never competed, Dustin doesn't know what I'm going through. And so in retrospect, that ACL and that thoracic outlet and that phone call you got that said you better get your rear end to the ER or wherever because your life is potentially in danger if you throw this clot. Those prepared you for a career in health care. But along the way you managed to find success, you stayed eligible, you were a four-year member of the football team at Hardin-Simmons, and where our stories intersect, you were winding that career down. So athletics had been a key part of your life and your identity all through high school and now all through college. Talk me through that transition from football player at Hardin-Simmons, identity wrapped up and being a college athlete, and now you're struggling for your academic life as a grad student in Lubbock, Texas. Yeah, that was tough. I don't even know where to start with that because I'll never forget. I tell people all the time when I've had students that have come after me reach out and say, hey, I'm struggling. I always try to tell them, stay the course, but you really got to crank down. I'll never forget walking into your office, making a 46 on the exam portion and a 66 on the lab portion and just going, I don't know what to do, right? I averaged out a 56 on that first upper extremity set of exams and I just remember being like, I'm not going to make it. It's just not going to happen. Like I'm not, and you tell me you're like, you know, here's how you're going to do it. You know, and we, we set up the study, we set up, here's what you need to study. Here's how you need to study. Here's what you need to look at. And instead of being so wrapped up in all the, in the football and the, and the sports and all the other things I was trying to keep myself busy with, it then turned to, hey, I got to hit the books. Right. And so all of a sudden I had to learn how to be a student. I had to stop focusing so much on being an athlete. And now I've got to be a student. And, you know, one of the things I think really hit me that first semester was like, hey, this is something where you are going to potentially have somebody's life in your hands. You need to take it seriously, like it's not one of those things you're gonna be able to cheat your way through. It's not one of the things you're gonna be able to overlook and just kind of, oh, here it is, I've got it, now I can go, right. And I think that did a lot for me. And right, so that second block with lower extremity, I was a little more comfortable with it from the ACL. And I still think I ended up making like a 60 something. So my average was sitting right there in that low 60s. And you and I were kind of talking like, hey, here's what's got to be made over the next two exams for you to get out of this. Otherwise, we're going to recycle back to next summer. And so I'll never forget going into the last block that we had, I needed, and I think I made a decent enough grade on the third block. I think I need like an 85 or an 86 in this class. And I think we ended up pulling out like an 88 or a 90 on that one. And then, you know, we went into the fall semester and I think it was biomechanics and I had to have a 88 on the last exam that we had in biomechanics. And you told me like, you're gonna have to pull out an 88 if you want to stick around and learn that student side of it, learn to study, sat down with a bunch of my classmates, had them kind of teach me their study habits and tried to learn my find my own way through that and navigate how to be just a student and not get distracted by all the outside noise and all the activities I used to like to be a part of. Which is real hard when you're a Division One college town and you've never been there before. Middle of football season, so you know you're trying to navigate you know where can I be a student, where can I be a human being and enjoy my time, but I'll never forget needing to have an 88 on that final mechanics test and making like a 95 or 96 and just walking here off and saying, all right, we're graduating. It's going to happen now. And we, you know, from then on, from that whole time took off. And even with those grades pulled out, was able to pull out a 3.0 in grad school. Again, it was, it was one of those things that's just sweating on days, trying to figure out how what I was to what I am now to what I'm gonna be. I think a lot of that went along with the preceptors I had and the placements that I had, as well as the advisors and the professors that I had. Even some of the classmates, right? I think I'd sat down and talked to Zach Lewis, who's with the Broncos a few times. I was like, hey, how do we get through this? How do I make it happen? Still talk to Tim Woodstock all the time. We bounce things off each other. My classmates were always supportive. Some of them looked at me like I was an idiot at times because I did have a tendency to be a little overbearing and and a little bit pushy with things, but you know they would help me regardless. And so it was tough to separate that athlete to student and have to learn to just be a student. Yeah. And learn that hey it's time to grow up and it's time to become a professional and what you're going to do. I think grad school did a lot for me in that. Would you say that your requirements of grad school is a heavy lift? Like the academic part of this was harder than anything you had ever encountered. I mean I'm not just saying you, pretty much every student that comes in. Atomy is the hardest place I've ever had. Did that distract you do you think? Did it keep your mind off of the loss of sport? You were just on to the next thing? You weren't worried about what lay behind? You worried about what lay ahead? Yeah, I think a lot of it and like I said, you know, when you realize that you may have to recycle and have to wait a year to come back and restart and do what you're trying to do for your career, there becomes a lot of distraction and once you finally figure out that I got to study, I got to learn, I got to be a student, yeah, there's that distraction that comes in and says, hey, all of a sudden, we're not this, we're here, like we got to move, we got to go. You know, I haven't looked back since that day, you know, the only thing I've really done in my life is down CrossFit. And that was my biggest thing that's kept me close to like competing, but not really competing, right. And so that's been kind of my voice for some competition. You know, my wife, my wife's also an athletic trainer, also works out with me. And so we like, you know, former college basketball player, right. So we have, we still have a lot of competing going on in our lives. You know, that's kind of where we found that, where I found that healthy competition that doesn't necessarily rely on me, you know, having to be successful all the time and just wanting to prove myself to everybody. Yeah. So Hardin-Simmons is a religious affiliated institution. Talk to me about your faith. So you had two major health setbacks and potentially put your athletic career in jeopardy before your college career ever started. But you end up at Hardin-Simmons, you have to take Bible class in order to graduate. I mean, there's some faith oriented things and certainly your coaches and your teammates are Christians. Talk about your faith during that four years at Hardin-Simmons. Well, I'm going to take it back even further. So young me, dad was actually a minister of music at our church. So from the time I was born until, man, I guess when I came to Lubbock, I was going to church pretty regularly. I grew up in the church, grew up singing every Christmas recital, because Dad, again, the music minister that he was, I was always in the youth classes, I was in the choir. I had to sing because my mom and dad, they enjoyed me singing and I enjoyed singing and obviously enjoyed being a part of the spotlight. And so that made things real nice, but I devoted my life to Christ when I was 11. For my first time, we went out on a youth trip, gave my life to Christ when I was 11. Felt like at the time I really understood it. And as I grew up through middle school and high school, I still walked it, didn't walk it near the way I watched my granddad and my grandma walk it. They were super religious, lived and died by them. And I mean, you remember the week my granddad passed while I was out there right before graduation, toughest week of my life, like I was just gone, right? Life's wrong, but nobody was ever home. And, um, I attribute a lot of my faith back to them and the way that they raised my dad, my uncle, you know, my mom was always super supportive. And then I turned 17. I had this surgery or had the surgery had my, uh, told me to say, Hey, you know, if it releases and goes left, you're dead. You're going to be gone. And, you know, I've been going to church with some of my high school friends and going over to First Baptist Hewlett's and being around a bunch of classmates that were there, you know, I really started to kind of see that picture again, because it's one of those like, hey, tomorrow's not promised. You know, I'm not guaranteed the next day. I'm not guaranteed to do what I, you know, to do what I love to do. And so I sat down and talked to our pastor and talked to our youth ministers, re-evaluated myself and picked my walk up with Christ a little more there. And I gave my life back to Christ again and rededicated myself in 2008, because for me, I'm lucky to be alive, right? I'm real lucky. If that, you know, as you know, if that blood clot was to move, you know, it can easily kill me. And I may not be here. So without him, without his grace, you know, very easily, you know, there's a lot of things in my life. I look back on him like, man, I shouldn't have said that I should have been that person. And he allowed me to have that opportunity to live every day. And I think a lot of that, that's when the Harden Simmons is just funny, because after I did that, that was when I had Mary Harden Baylor, another, you know, Christian affiliated university, and Harden Simmons came in on the same week trying to get me to come, come out. Mary Harden Baylor asked me about football, Harden Simmons asked me about my personal life, my goals, my dreams, and I was like I'm going there. And so like you said, yeah, we had Bible classes, we had an Old Testament class, we had a New Testament class. Shout out to Dr. Prevost because that guy was absolutely awesome. We used to have to have bowling nights as my, as some of my study halls because I struggled a little bit with with Old Testament, but we had to do chapel once a week. Every Tuesday we had chapel and everybody had to go. Everybody had to swipe and scan in and you had to have a certain number of chapel credits to move on to the next semester. So we all pretty much went to the same churches out there. We're a part of something, coaches out there, we're all in faith, we're all, you know, everything they did with us was faith-centered and faith-based and it still is that way. Coach Berleson, who's still out there running the show, who's a former Cowboy himself, you know, he's done some great things with that program and great things with the young men that have come out. And we've got, you know, so many of us that are out and about in the community and in the, you know, especially in the coaching world of Texas high school sports, you know. You have me, it's funny, because you have me here at McKinney High, my wife's at McKinney Boyd, one of our assistant athletic directors is a Hardin Simmons alum. We went to Prosper Rock Hill this year, one of their coaches is a former Hardin Simmons alum. So, you know, and we all see each other and it's just like a big family, you know, because, you know, we all understand that, even though, for instance, you know, our athletic director was there in the 90s, he understands the love and the community that was built through Hardin Simmons and the faith that centered around that town in Abilene. And with it being three colleges, they're all Christian based out there, between us, McMurray, and Abilene Christian. And so, you know, pretty much anywhere you went, you could hear the story. You could find a story of somebody's and how Christ has laid a hand on them, whether it be from a situation like mine or whether, you know, somebody who had lost a family member and was struggling with some sort of addiction, which we'd had, you know, a few, a few teammates that were that way, but they came to Christ and found him and were able to rebuild their lives and have grown into great young men and great young women and contributions to society when at times things felt so bleak. And, you know, that's something I've always been able to turn to. That's something that's always kept me going. You know, my, my two of my three tattoos all have a cross symbol, a cross symbol involved with one, both of them are involved around both my granddad's deaths and, and the love that I have for them. And so, because without Christ, I don't, I don't have, I don't have the love and the family that I was built with, that I've had to support me for my entire life. Um, you know, and they've all supported me through, you know, everything I dealt with, cause they knew how much I was hurting. They knew how difficult things had gotten for me. And my family is super close. They know every story we've talked about from, you know, almost failing out, almost dying to, you know, just all these things. But yeah, I mean, you know, it's one of those things where it's like, you know, you look back and there's only one thing that can contribute to where I'm at. Right. And it ain't me. Yeah, it ain't me. I'm doing what he's asked me to do. You know, I'm just a small pawn in a really large chess board. Cool, thanks for sharing that. So it was a struggle, but you're a gamer. You perform when you need to perform, and you graduate, and you pass the BOC, first first swipe at it, and you're now a certified athletic trainer, and you're headed out into the world. But like many people, you're not still at the same school where you started. So let's talk about where you've been and those seasons of transition. How did you know that it was the right move for you? Just kind of talk me through Dustin walking across the Masters of Athletic Training stage to Dustin today at McKinney High School. Yes, I've worked three different spots. I've been a little more urban area and down in the Carrollton area, Las Colinas area, Carrollton Ranch View. spent a year there as an assistant athletic trainer working with the high school and the middle school, the feeder middle school that came in. My head athletic trainer left, I took over as the head athletic trainer for the next two years, and then I was kind of searched around, I was driving about 45 minutes to an hour, one way depending on traffic. And it's nothing but toll roads up here in Dallas, it's expensive, real quick. And then gas was getting expensive and I was like, I can't keep doing this. So we were living in McKinney, because as my wife will tell it, she got her job first and we had no idea where I was gonna be, so we're gonna live in McKinney. Yes, ma'am. So we lived in McKinney, I made the drive for three years and then started kind of looking around, found a CrossFit home up here that's got a lot of our closest family and friends that are here. And so we've built a lot of our life around that community as well. And so my wife and I started house shopping, decided to build a house up here and then said, okay, I got to get closer. And so I started looking around, applied a couple of places, didn't hear anything back. And then saw a job that really piqued my interest at VA up in Van Alstyne where they had never had a full-time athletic trainer. They were starting everything fresh from the ground. And I thought, man, what a challenge. What an opportunity to get to start my own program, run it how I wanted to implement the things that I wanted to implement and help build that from the ground up. The end all goal was to be in the same district as my wife so we could kind of be on the same schedule and be close to each other. And so we, the VA, spent two years there and then got the call last August, like super last minute, from the athletic trainer that I currently work with here saying, hey, are you still interested? She's known for five, like I, at this point I'm five years in, she's known for five years. If this job was to open up for her co-worker, let me know. I am a hundred miles an hour getting there for the interview. And sure enough, she hits me up a week before school starts like, hey, you think they'll let you out of your contract? And I'm like, oof, like we had, we've already started fall camp. Like we're a week from school starting. So, you know, we get on the search trying to find somebody to replace me so we do. Did you catch that? The job Dustin had been waiting for for half a decade finally opens up but the timing kind of stinks. In a world that would tell most of us to worry about ourselves, sorry about you if that means other places or people have to suffer, he didn't even apply for the new job until he made sure his current job and the people he served for two years are well taken care of. And only after he's able to find someone to take t pursue the new? It's a le and a legacy and leaving you found it. I come in, out, get the call saying, working on getting all yo van Alstyne taken care of of those that first year but not nice because that we go on spring break. Like I just worked a three-day baseball softball tournament in Van Alstyne and that Saturday it ended, we go on spring break and I don't hear a word from anybody else other than, hey, school's canceled. Well, Jacqueline and I are eight months pregnant at that time. And so we're like, okay, school's canceled for a week. All right, well, we got some things to get done around the house before the baby gets here next month. And then school's canceled and then school's canceled. And then all of a sudden, hey, we're shutting down completely. And it was like, all right, we got a month to prep for this baby. So, you know, we have Daxon in April of 2020, our little COVID baby, and spend the next four or five months super spoiled, super spoiled, getting to be with him at home every day. Not a whole lot of responsibilities, but still fortunately being able to get paid for our jobs because we're doing everything through Zoom and Google Classroom and all of those things. And so working from home was, was nice, but it just didn't have, didn't have that athletic side of it, right. And, and it didn't have that human connection to where I'm getting to build those relationships with my coaches and my kids, but yeah, we had Daxton. And then of course I get through one more year and I'm by myself at Van Alstine working with both the high school and the middle school, you know, great town, great community, great families, all the support under the, under the sun. I could ask for, but the opportunity to be in the same district as my wife, crosstown rivals, getting to work with each other throughout the district, through lots of different opportunities and things that we do has been so much fun for us and so rewarding. And it helps us because we kind of know what the schedules look like for each other, because it's about the same. And so that athletic training life, as everybody knows, as an athletic trainer, it's not short, those days aren't short, not easy, getting to be a parent and getting to be an athletic trainer. But the fortunate thing for us is if one's working, the other one tries to be off so we can go and see the other. We try to if we got a chance where we can schedule both of us on the same night, we do so to where we can spend that time with little man. We can be around each other and be family oriented. Got here so ironically enough, when I applied for the position, head football coach here was actually becoming the head football coach at Estacado when I was doing my final rotation before graduation. So I'd already kind of met Coach Shavers. I'd already known him from Webbick Estacado and him working out there with Todd and me being a grad student still, a master student, getting my BOC that month and my clinical immersion. And so we kind of already had a rapport built and got, like I said, got the call probably two days later, hey, we want to bring you in. And I mean, I hit the ground. I was I got hired three days into the school year. We had a game that Friday, or we had a scrimmage that Friday, we had a game the next Saturday. I mean, we hit the ground running and hadn't looked back. And it's been so rewarding, been so rewarding getting to do what we do on a daily basis. Yeah, and for those not familiar, that McKinney-Allen area, the facilities are on par with a group of five colleges in some places, just the indoor facilities, the strength conditioning, just the level of athletics in that part, I mean in Texas period, but in that part of Texas specifically is really second to none. So congrats and kudos to you and your wife for getting to work and live and participate at that level. So there's some lessons that we can really only learn through failure, through setback, through adversity, and you faced your share of it. What do you think has been maybe the best lesson, the lesson maybe you want Daxton to learn or one of your patients to learn that you only learned because of the failure? You're going to be tested, but you just got to keep pushing. I mean, every day you're going to be tested by something. I'm fortunate enough in my career right now, I've got three ACLs all right now in my athletes and every day I'm able to show my scar and every day I'm able to say I get it I get it I understand keep pushing it's not comfortable like you know and I'm able to tell it's okay to be frustrated it's okay to cry it's okay to not be able to do what you want to do it's okay but keep pushing it's going to get there that breakthrough is going to happen. And when that breakthrough happens, it's so rewarding again, because it just keeps going and it keeps going and it keeps going. And then you just, it starts in the building blocks, right? You make one progression, then you make a second. Here we are, now we're stacking everything up and the pyramid gets built and bam, we're back on top. Right? So, you know, I think that's my biggest thing is perseverance. It's all the time. Gotta push. And even when it's, even when it seems like you're at the deepest, darkest depths of it that you just cannot find it you feel like you've a hundred percent hit rock bottom you just got to keep scratching and clawing to find your way through you know one of my favorite one of my favorite pictures is there's a picture of two miners sitting on top of each other you may have seen it and there's one and they're they're digging they're digging they're digging and one stops about this far from the diamonds and is walking away holding his pickaxe and the other one is sitting there is about this far and he's still hammering away at it and still hammering away at me this far from getting to a massive stack of diamonds and he just keeps going right say another one is you know this is a stone chisel right stone chisel sitting there working on building that stone building that stone build that stone be on that creation but it's not the first hundred it's not the first thousand hits of the stone that gets it to break that thousand and first but he just has to keep hitting has to keep persevering, has to keep pushing. And, you know, I put on the back of my, you know, ironically, I still have right up there is all my stuff from grad school. And one of my project, one of our projects was we had to put together our rehab list and we and on the back of it, my quote on the back was do something that your future self is going to thank you for. Yeah, still up there and I tell my kids just keep pushing do something that your future self is going to thank you for because right now it's hard and it sucks and it's not fun. But guess what? When you get that paper that says, hey I'm cleared to go, I'm gonna be right there celebrating with you as you as you're doing your thing and enjoying every minute of it. Because that's what I remember the feeling. I remember what that felt like and it was so rewarding and it's so rewarding from this side to get to be able to give that advice and get to see the faces as they return and how excited they are to do what they love when they've been out of it for so long. Absolutely. So I know you're a baseball guy, so you had a walk-up, but I'm not asking your walk-up. I love music and the emotion that it can convey. So if we were going to create the Dustin Emery documentary, what song would you have picked? Man, that's a, oh man, I don't know. Cause there's so many, there's, man, you got me on this one. This is a good one. I'll slip it on you then. What was your senior year walk up? Oh, it was Fort Minor. I remember the name, because I was too dang cocky to not play it. And I'll never forget one game. So our bench coach thought he was being funny. First at bat of the game, I'm in the on-deck circle. Our guy walks, so he's walking down. And all of a sudden, Toby Keith, I want to talk about me starts playing as I'm walking up to bat. And I'll never forget taking three steps out of the on deck circle, stopping, turning around, looking back and apparently everybody in the dugout knew. Everybody. My third base coach knew, I look in the stands, my parents knew. Everybody's just dying laughing about this. And I was like, you have got to be kidding me. Am I that bad? Ugh. I was like, and so I just sat there. I sat there for a minute, let the song play, and just ate it up. But I love almost anything Lil Wayne. Like Johnny Cash is a great one. Fell into a burning ring of fire, because there's days where I feel like that. There's days where I felt like that. Growing up, like I said, I was arrogant. I was cocky. It was always about me. But as I've gotten older, I've learned that there's a lot of things I got to do for a lot of other people and put myself on the back burner. Sometimes we get lost in that and I know a lot of our profession gets gets throttled by not putting themselves first and not drawing boundaries at time. Well that's a good segue because these days you're you're a husband and a dad and crossfitter and those things take time and it's no secret that a career as an AT takes a lot of time. So what do your days look like today and how do you balance those many hats that all are vying for moments and for your attention? Man, so that that's another big thing about my personal position right now. We have such a great group of coaches. We have, you know, I have such an awesome co-worker and the way that our schedule works, we teach one class. She and I co-teach that class. And so like some days I come in early at 6am for morning treatments. And then I teach the class second period and then our conference periods are third and fourth. So I'll take third and fourth off. And I'll head over to the gym and I get that hour to an hour and a half of personal time for me. Come back, shower up, come in and immediately start football. I mean, I'll be in the doorknob five minutes and we roll into fifth period football. On other days, if I'm not early teaching, then I'm, you know, I come in at like 11. I come in 10, 45, 11. But that means I'm staying late for whatever practices are up till 5.30, whatever games are, you know, till nine, 10 o'clock at night. But it gives us that ability for it. Cause she's got a Franny, little Franny, six months younger than Daxon. So they're both, they're both in their mid twos. And, you know, it gives her the ability to go home and be a mom and enjoy her time with her. And so like she gets to drop her off to at daycare on days when she comes in late. I get to drop Dex off at daycare on days when I'm late and get to go home early. We get to pick them up from daycare or wherever they're at and get to spend that time together. And so I mix in my try to mix in that crossfit side of me in the mornings and I'll, you know, I coach sometimes too. And so on days when I get off early, I might go do that and let Dex and have some more fun at daycare and then come home and he and I will play, shoot Hot Wheels, he's got Monster Trucks, I mean we're in that setting of it right now and spent some time doing that. And then when mom gets home we're between watching Coco and Toy Story 1 and Toy Story 2 and 3 and 4 and you know it is Bubble Guppies, I mean he has his own playlist on our Spotify, like he has sing-alongs with his own playlist. It's got the Bubble Guppy theme song and Paw Patrol and Scooby-Doo. And he knows them and he'll sing them to you and he tells you what he wants. And just the ability to do that, obviously crossover season for us makes that difficult, but as often and as easy as it is, say easy as it is in the fall, cause the hours are kind of sketchy there too, but we're able to build those in, right? And so it makes it a little more, at least a little bit easier. Right. But if I was, if I was still trying to solo with Van Alstine, I don't know that I'd ever gotten to see him. I don't know that we get to do the things we do and get to have the time and I get to live the life that I do get to live because of it. Yeah. And so, you know, you're trying to balance one hat. As soon as you're done, you're like, man, I'm out of here. Like, let's let's go this other one on. Let's go be dad. You know, let's go be husband. Let's go be CrossFit coach or CrossFit member or friend or whatever it is I need to be that day. So it's, it makes it like I said, it makes it easy when you've got supportive cast around. You've got here a lot of athletic trainers that are like, man, my admin, my admin, my coaches, my coaches, my kids, my parents. And I'm like, I can't relate. Yeah. Can't relate. It's a new era. I think a lot of coaches and athletics directors have, I mean, they, they feel the same pressures that, that we feel as clinicians. And there's a much healthier outlook. It's still, there's still room to grow, but it's much healthier than it was for sure a generation ago. Last question I ask of everyone, what for Dustin remains undone? I think it's the future of my career. I think it's where, where does it go from here? You know, what kind of, am I going to be 15 years down the line with a student of mine sitting in the same type of position talking about how did Dustin, did Coach Emory, did my athletic trainer, did he have this type of impact? Did I make that influence enough to make somebody understand what it is that we do with our profession? How can I continue to advocate for athletic training as well as advocating for myself within my own district, within my own school? And then, Daxton, where's he going to be in 20 years, right, when he's 22? You know, what kind of opportunities can I allot for him? And what kind of opportunities can we give to him moving forward? And any little brother or little sister that he may have coming along at any point in time, right, what is it that I can do for them to make sure that their future is as smooth as it can be without it being easy? Yeah. Cuz it's never gonna be easy. Right. I can't help but wonder if you and Jaclyn are holding off for a second to wait to see who the Cowboys sign at quarterback so that you'll know what to name them. So many people, man. So actually Dax Shepard is where I got Dax from. And my wife, Jacqueline, is J-A-C-L-Y-N. Her mom's name is Linda. Her dad's name is Jack, Jacqueline. So my entire family is D-R-E initials and we needed a D and something that wasn't, we didn't want something super basic. And so I was like, Dax is a good name. I'm like, what about Daxton? I said, and then we'll be those people that will change the I to a Y, right? And sure enough, we did. And so, you know, but people all the time, oh, you're a huge Daxton. You know what? Yeah, no, we're not waiting on that. Well, you are a budding TikTok star. So how can listeners connect with you? Where can they follow socials and such. Man, a lot of my stuff is super easy. It's D underscore E-M-A-T-C and it's super straightforward. I get out there. I just, you know, I like to say the things that people aren't really going to come out and say and think of the things that aren't going to be said. And there's a few plays off of some other friends of mine, but we like to have some fun. We like to, I just like to poke a little bit, you know, people don't mind it. I know my coaches, my kids get a kick out of it. Our students love it. They see it. They're just like, hey, I saw you today or hey, I saw your wife today on TikTok. And you know, that's so true. Well, I know. That's the best part about it. People are like, that's kind of rough. It's true. And they're like, it's funny, but they're funny. It's funny because it's true. But it's things that people really just won't say. For whatever reason, like I just, I'm going straight forward. I'm going to tell you. So yeah, D underscore M-A-T-C on Instagram. I'm pretty sure it's the same for it and TikTok as well as Twitter. So I'm always down to talk and put it out there. Well, Dustin, it's been a pleasure. I say this to all students. I'm always blessed to be a part of any student's journey. You have more than most reciprocated. You keep in touch with us and I really appreciate that. That's been exciting to watch you grow, to watch you head into new seasons of life as a dad and to see you make your way as a professional. So I am so proud of you and it has been such an honor and such a exciting journey to watch you. This is awesome. I'm really glad we got to have this talk. Even if nobody listens to my podcast, I love that it's an excuse to reconnect and have interviews with people that I love. Absolutely, absolutely. For a four-sport athlete and state champion football player turned college football player, then athletic trainer Dustin Emory, it's been quite a ride. Injuries and medical conditions threatened to derail his dreams, but through the love of his family and the strength drawn from his faith, he's carved out a place as a fixture on the sidelines of McKinney High School in the Dallas area. But through it all, he's emerged stronger and also more appreciative, maybe even just a little bit more humble for the journey. Dustin, I know your grandpas are looking down on the husband, the dad, and the man you've become, and they are smiling. Becoming Undone is a NitroHype Creative Production written and produced by me Toby Brooks if you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for becoming undone please contact me at undone podcast.com where you can also sign up for a mailing list to be notified of new episode drops and exclusive team undone benefits becoming undone can be heard on Apple podcasts Spotify stitcher Google podcasts iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time everybody, keep getting better.