After numerous years of youth basketball, four years at the high school level, four years of college ball and one year of professional basketball, the game starts to become the only job you know. Life becomes centered around turning the dream of becoming a professional basketball player into a reality. Still, there comes a time in every player’s life where that dream has to be altered, as playing the sport can no longer serve as your profession.
For former Wisconsin shooting guard Ben Brust, after only one year of playing professional basketball for Pieno žvaigžd?s of the Lithuanian Basketball League, the UW star came to the realization he no longer wanted to continue his professional basketball career.
“[My goal] was always just trying to keep playing basketball, and then I went overseas, and just decided that that lifestyle and being overseas in different places for the next however long it would have been just was not appealing to me,” Brust said. “I mean, there’s nothing better than playing, and I still will say that, but there was just so many pieces that came with playing after college that kind of pushed me away from it in terms of playing in a professional manner.”
This decision to move on from playing the game professionally did not come easy for Brust. Instead, it took weeks of reflection in order for him to finally decide to walk away from his playing career.
“I don’t know if there was necessarily a moment, but the more and more it got closer to that leave date [in late summer for my second year overseas], the more and more I was kind of pushing it off, and I was kind of just hesitant and I was telling myself, ‘Is that really what you want to do? If you’re this hesitant about going back, and if you aren’t going to enjoy it, then why are you doing it?’” Brust said. “I just wanted to get home and build a community around here.”
Now, a few months removed from playing the game professionally, Brust has found a way to build that community at home by transitioning into working with the GoEmpire Group–a basketball player agency run out of Brust’s hometown of Chicago.
“I kinda was just at a wedding in Cleveland and through one of the people that was getting married I had met this guy Ed and he came up to me [and asked], ‘You’re Ben Brust, right?’’ ‘I run a basketball agency,’ is what he told me,” Brust said. “We got to know each other a little bit more and he asked me if I wanted to come on board and help him out, and the next thing you know, we met up in Chicago the same week and we sat down and talked and I decided to help him out.”
For the first time in Brust’s life, instead of playing the game he loves, he is in charge of finding and developing the next great professional athletes for the GoEmpire Group.
According to Edward Grochowiak, the owner and creator of the agency and the aforementioned wedding guest, “We are trying to put our clients in a situation that is advantageous for them both on and off the court. We take a very serious stance in developing the basketball player but mostly the man, the human being, the guy that’s going to be a future father and a future husband.”
More specifically though, Brust’s role in the company is to use that mission statement to find and recruit the talent that the agency hopes to develop and polish.
“My role specifically is client advocacy. I’m actually doing a lot of recruiting right now,” Brust said. “I do some stuff on the social media, but my main role is to be an advisor to all of our clients, and that’s how I am trying to attack these prospects that we are going after because I went through the process of playing overseas and picking an agent.”
Brust’s career overseas and experience in his run in professional basketball has helped him transition into his position with the agency. In fact, Brust contributes most of his recent success with the GoEmpire Group to his playing career in Lithuania, since almost all of the athletes that are represented by the agency are Americans playing in Europe.
“Yeah, it’s a little bit of transition. You turn into more of an evaluator than a guy just trying to learn and get better. But I’m a routine guy and I had that routine while I was playing and it’s kind of the same thing as you move on with life,” Brust said. “You find your routine of your time schedule. So it hasn’t been too different other than the fact that I’m not running up and down a basketball court.”
Not only did Brust recognize the importance his professional basketball experience had on his new profession, but Grochowiak also understands how Brust’s experience has helped him transition into the agency.
“He kind of used his experience to educate and give insight into our future guys, like look this is what happens even if you're in the summer league or even if you're in NBA workouts and end up in Europe,” Grochowiak said. “If anything he has been able to bridge the gap pretty sufficiently because he has been in those shoes before. He speaks from a place of experience that I can’t.”
Even though Brust recognizes the significance of identifying and connecting with the players through his time playing overseas, his career at Wisconsin helped him transition into the agency almost as much as his brief professional career has. In fact, Brust found a clear parallel between his development at Wisconsin and his development as an agent.
“There’s growing pains from your freshman year to your rookie year overseas, you kind of find your niche, you kinda just gotta get through the year, have a decent year, get better out of it, then the next year you look to expand your role and it’s always a constant growing process in everything you do,” Brust said. “So there’s definitely a parallel in taking care of business and knowing that it’s up to you when you’re out there to perform as a player. You can be your best agent just by producing and the rest will take care of itself.”
When Brust came to Wisconsin in 2010, the young guard only played three minutes per game and only shot 20 percent from behind the arc in a season where the Badgers lost in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament. Still, Brust remained patient and determined, and by the time he was a senior, he had become both a leader and potent threat for the Badgers. In his final season at UW, Brust not only led his team to the Final Four, but claimed the program's record for the most 3-point shots made in his career.
Now, similarly to when he was playing the game at UW, Brust is still continuing to expand his role in basketball. Even his newfound success and his expanding development with the sports agency is not enough basketball. Brust is still looking to stay even more involved with the sport in any way possible.
“I mean I never really knew what I was gonna do after I was done playing and quite frankly I am still trying to figure that out. This has just been good to keep me busy, and I will always continue doing this, but I may have to try to find something a little more stable,” Brust said. “I do some coaching locally, I do some one-on-one lessons, and I do this basketball agency. So there are ways to stay involved. Obviously, it is tough to stop playing, but it is also nice to be around the game still.”
Still, despite looking for other ways to stay involved with basketball, Brust is enjoying his time with the company and expects to continue to build the GoEmpire Group, especially through recruiting.
“I never thought I would say this, and it may get old after a while because it is still kind of fresh, but the recruiting part has actually been kind of fun,” Brust said. “That kind of pushed me away from possibly going into college coaching, because I didn't really want to recruit that much, but we were up in Milwaukee recruiting a kid and we were just sitting down with the player and the parents and it just came so naturally to me and I really enjoyed that.”
As evidenced by his natural ability to recruit, the seemingly difficult transition from playing sports to working in sports has come more naturally to Brust than he may have expected. Despite playing basketball his whole life, Brust is just beginning to embrace working with athletes and helping them find success in their futures both on and off the court–enjoying it even more than when he was focusing on his own future playing the game. In fact, Brust does not feel jealous at all helping other people make their dreams of playing professionally a reality.
“I wouldn’t say ‘jealousy’ because I still have best friends who play over there and I’m not at all envious when I look at their pictures or whatever and that’s the feeling where I know I made the right decision because I’m totally at peace with being here,” Brust said. “I just look forward to helping these players and kids because it just wasn’t for me and that happens, it's not for everyone, but it is for some guys, and it’s really nice talking to the kids who I can kind of look at them and hear their experiences and hear that they're going to enjoy something like this, because if you don’t attack it 110 percent you’re not going to make it.”
So, for Brust, even though his dream of playing the sport professionally has ended, he has been able to recreate that dream and find his niche helping develop the next generation of basketball talent.
