Brian Decker, Eastern Kentucky ’96, has service in his blood, according his profile by the Indianapolis Colts, published last November.
“My grandfather served in the military in the Korean War and my dad served in the military in Vietnam. There was a tradition of service in my family,” he says in the article. “I think the military was always something I thought about in the back of my mind.
Decker grew up in a rural area where college wasn’t prioritized, but when everybody else started going, he wanted to go as well. “I probably read and wrote at an elementary level when I graduated high school,” he said. Because of his grades he ended up going to a community college for a year or so, but realized it wasn’t the right fit. He quit soon after. Suddenly, the military felt like his only viable option. He enlisted.
“Once I got there, in a very short amount of time I realized I had made a great decision because the military is the ultimate meritocracy – they don’t care where you come from, they don’t care what your socioeconomic status is, where you went to school – they’re just really concerned about your ability to assimilate and work hard.”
Decker threw himself into this hard work. “It was probably the first thing in my life that anyone ever told me I was good at. It’s hard to develop a passion for something until you’ve enjoyed some success. I really liked the structure. I liked the fact that it was about working hard. If you worked hard and did the right things, you could advance.” He worked so hard he made his way up to Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Special Forces, serving two tours of duty in Iraq. The first tour he was 32, and his wife was seven months pregnant with twin girls
Decker was in charge of a special forces team. “I was getting an opportunity to lead some of the most highly trained, qualified, some of the greatest Americans that I’ve ever met – to lead them and be responsible for them in combat,” he said. By all measures, the deployment was a huge success. “We did great things, had a huge impact in the area where we were – nobody got hurt, nobody got killed, you bring them all back – that’s mission success.”
When Decker returned he went on to graduate from Eastern Kentucky, eventually obtaining his masters in Naval Postgraduate School and taking a position overseeing the talent acquisition strategy for future Green Berets. Assessment and selection for special forces is, according to Decker, a lot like the NFL draft or combine. It’s a 24-day job interview and on top of that it’s not to join, it’s just to go to training, which can be anywhere from a year and a half to two years long. Decker has helped to essentially overhaul the special forces selection process.
What Decker and his team came to realize about the selection process is that by focusing only on performance, they were missing to on the person’s characteristics. Decker’s attention to individual qualities and traits led him to become a consultant for professional organizations of every major sport and eventually the Cleveland Browns brought him on to be a part of their player selection process.
“It was the perfect opportunity because even though I love sports, my passion is selecting and developing people for high performance teams – whether that be special forces or football. The only people that are really willing to put the resources behind selection are with sports teams because you can’t overcome a poor selection process.” In Decker’s experience, many of the qualities of a great leader are the same, whether they be soldier or athlete. “I would go a step farther and say that when you talk about the elite level of the military, or any sport, or most business organizations – if you take the sports specific requirements away and look at the mindset of the person – they’re more alike than different,” he said
During his three years as Commander of Special Forces Assessment and Selection the program saw so much success that other organizations became interested. This is how he eventually came into contact with the NFL’s Chris Ballard, who became General Manager of the Colts in 2017. Ballard reached out to Decker and the two struck up a professional relationship. The same year, he brought Decker on to help with player selection and development.
For the past three years, this relationship has been wildly successful. Ballard praised Decker’s accomplishments for the team in the same interview. “The skills, judgement, and leadership he gained and refined in the military assist every day in the development of our culture and team,” he said.
Decker continues to give back to the military and prioritizes discovering non-traditional ways to incorporate veterans into business. His focus remains on developing skills that players can use for life, much like he did for his soldiers. “Where football is very similar to the military is that shared sense of purpose. We’re all a part of something that’s greater than ourselves. I think every one of us who works here wants to be able to know that in some way, form, or fashion, we’re having an impact.”
To honor his hard work, Colts nominated Decker for the 2019 Salute to Service Award, an annual award created to acknowledge the exceptional efforts of members of the NFL community in their support of members of the military. Unfortunately, Decker did not win, the award went to the Los Angeles Chargers’ Donnie Edwards instead. Still, we can all celebrate this Phi Tau and his incredible accomplishments. Go Far!
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