Bryant Eustice sees similarities between being K-9 handler, coach

Upon returning to the Illinois Valley after serving with the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, St. Bede graduate Bryant Eustice was looking for a new direction.

“I came home and was working the grounds at St. Bede and coaching football and baseball,” Eustice said. “It was weird coming home from the army. It was kind of a crossroads of where I was going to go from there.”

Brett Valle, a fellow assistant football coach at St. Bede and a sergeant with the Oglesby Police Department, suggested Eustice get into law enforcement.

“The more I thought about it, I couldn’t think of a more perfect job,” Eustice said.

Eustice applied to multiple departments and was hired on as a La Salle County deputy.

He trained for 16 weeks at the Macon County Law Enforcement Training Center in Decatur then spent 12 weeks in field training before starting on the midnight shift as a deputy.

Later, the midnight K-9 handler position opened and Eustice took over the job, which required six weeks of training at the academy in Kane County with Miko.

“It was a good opportunity,” Eustice said. “I’ve been around dogs my whole life. I liked the idea of having someone there every night who I get to work with, mold and train. Being a coach, it’s always kind of intriguing to have almost like a project when it comes to developing, whether it’s a high school student or in this case a patrol dog.

“There’s a lot of intersecting paths and ideas that kind of go into both. For me, it was a pretty easy transition to go from coaching kids to coaching a dog almost.”

For St. Bede football coach Jim Eustice, Bryant’s father, he feels a mix of pride and nerves when he thinks about his son’s career.

“He went in the army for a couple years and that was a proud moment while scaring the heck out of Cathy and I,” Jim Eustice said. “Then he came back and decided he wanted to do this. He’s worked hard with all his training the last year and a half. We’re just very proud of him. As a first responder, it’s obviously scary as a parent, but on the other hand, you want your kids to be happy and successful and he’s very happy and he’s doing great.”

Bryant Eustice starts his shift at midnight, first feeding Miko and loading him up. He said it’s never known whether there will be a lot of calls or not.

“Some nights it’s silent and some nights we’re going call to call and those nights can be on a Tuesday morning or a Friday night,” said Bryant Eustice, who also handles calls for area departments without a K-9 unit on duty. “We never really know what we’re going into when it comes to the type of night. On the slower nights, Miko and I do as much training as we can whether it’s narcotic training, suspect apprehension training or tracking.”

Last fall, Bryant Eustice was working as a midnight deputy during the first part of the football season and later was completing his training to become Miko’s handler, graduating the day after Thanksgiving.

“Getting off at 8 a.m., I try to get as much sleep as I can to be functional for practice but also be able to get home from practice and have enough sleep to do another 8-hour shift,” Bryant Eustice said. “Sometimes I stay up until practice is over and then sleep, sometimes I sleep as much as I can before practice then I’m up until 8 a.m. the following day and there are days you get sleep on both ends.

“It’s been good with the understanding staff we have at St. Bede. Some days I can’t (make practice) due to training obligations or I’m too tired. That’s why our staff is so great because we have all these guys who really pick up the load when needed.”

Bryant Eustice is an offensive assistant for the Bruins. He knows his dad’s offense well having grown up around it and from quarterbacking the Bruins for two seasons – including leading St. Bede to a 7-4 record and a second-round playoff appearance as a senior in 2016.

He went on to play one season at St. Olaf College before eventually leaving school and joining the military.

“All the things he’s done have made him able to handle people very well,” Jim Eustice said. “He handles the kids very well. He was a very successful quarterback and going on to the next level for a year. Of course, he understands my offense because he’s been around it his whole life. He knows what we expect and what I expect and not it’s what he expects and he’s able to teach that to the kids. With him being much closer in age to them than I am, the kids seem to respond to him very well.”

Bryant Eustice said his career in law enforcement, especially his duties as a K-9 handler, has helped him become a better coach.

“I think patience is probably the biggest thing I’ve learned,” Bryant Eustice said. “The K-9 trainer told me about a week before I went to the academy, ‘Welcome to the most rewarding yet frustrating job ever.’ I definitely see what he was saying. It’s harder to communicate with an animal than a human, obviously. Being able to be patient, keep your cool and just know when to shift the mood and shift the lesson is important. I’ve experienced that with players. When one is simply not getting it, you have to find another approach to teach, and that’s the same thing with Miko. There are times when there are techniques that I use that just might not work that day and I have to find another approach. That’s probably one of the biggest similarities when it comes to coaching kids and training Miko.”

Bryant Eustice said another similarity is the satisfaction he gets out of seeing Miko or a player successfully use what he’s been teaching.

“When Miko does his job and we’re successful, it’s the same amount of joy I get when you see a player who might have been in a shell at the beginning of the year and by the end, he’s performing really well and making some big plays,” Bryant Eustice said.