Alumni Spotlight – Brandon Cruse (IE 2005)
One thing that holds true for every South Dakota Mines graduate is knowing that your degree can take you anywhere and open doors you never thought possible. From government and military engineering contracts to exploring the depths of the Earth, anything is possible for South Dakota Mines graduates – even becoming a National Football League (NFL) referee.
Brandon Cruse (IE 2005) grew up watching the Minnesota Vikings with his dad and playing football, all the way through high school. He loved the sport but knew he wasn’t going to be a college athlete.
“I ultimately had a Vitamin S deficiency,” he said. “I lacked speed, strength, and size.”
After taking a tour and getting connected with Dr. Carter Kerk, Brandon decided to attend South Dakota Mines, starting in 2001. Dr. Kerk then went on to become a great mentor during Brandon’s years in school. He knew he was going to be an IE grad from the beginning, especially after hearing Dr. Kerk speak about the degree. The way it was laid out made sense and after receiving scholarship money, he knew it was the right choice for him.
While in school, he started refereeing and officiating high school football games on the evenings and weekends.
“I was just looking for a way to stay connected to the game,” he said. “I had no idea that I would grow to love officiating as much as I do now. I started at 19 years old as a sophomore in college and I never looked back.”
His overall journey from Black Hills area high school football games to the NFL took around 20 years for him to achieve. When he first graduated he worked what he calls “normal” jobs, working in manufacturing at Lehman Trikes, then moving to Regional Health (now Monument Health). After he left Regional Health in 2018, he started his own management consulting firm to help service some local businesses in his network. Along the way, he never stopped refereeing and officiating high school football games.
“I loved it so much I just wanted to work every game that I possibly could,” he said. “Officiating is a business, it’s a craft just like everything else. The only way to get better is to do it, you need experience, so that’s what I tried to do when I was in college. It is just part of me.”
In 2011 he decided to pursue his love of officiating on a national level by going to training camps around the country in the spring and summer months. Brandon said training camps offer a lot of experience and exposure, especially since there is no school for officiating. Scouts are often attending these training camps, watching the referees, and seeing who has potential to make it big. He eventually found his way to the Big 12 Conference in college football and continued to work college games until he caught the eye of a NFL scout. Come to find out, the NFL had been scouting him for five years, and in 2022 his dreams came true when he made it to his first NFL game: Buffalo Bills vs. Los Angeles Rams, the opening game of the 2022 football season with the Rams as the defending Super Bowl champions.
“I definitely had a few butterflies, you do feel the pressure,” he said. “But the atmosphere is so electric, it’s why we come back. It’s so fun to have that energy.”
Brandon remembers during that game making a call in front of a veteran referee, who challenged him on his call. Luckily his call ended up being right, but he recalls it being a defining moment in his career as a referee.
“The games are moving fast and the players are so good, there’s always a level of do I have what it takes to work at this level today,” he said. “For that play, I felt like I had what it takes. It was a fun moment in my first game in my first year nationally.”
His IE degree from South Dakota Mines, while not the degree you’d expect for a NFL referee, is what he believes truly set him up for success as a referee. As an IE student, he was always looking for ways to improve processes, become more efficient, and optimize a system. Everything centers around continuous improvement, how to make a system better tomorrow than it is today for the benefit of other people.
“Officiating is the same mindset to the extent that the best officials are always looking for ways to improve,” he said. “Football is always evolving, so it’s important to take that IE mindset and mentally break down my processes. As I’m going through processes on the field on every play, I’m looking for ways to improve.”
Brandon said in order to help him do that, he performs a self-analysis after every game, looking at every play he saw and every call he made to see if he could have done something better. He has often found things that nobody in the world would know they missed, but because they have that continuous improvement mentality, they know they missed it and they can improve.
His love of the sport and passion for continuous improvement doesn’t stop on the field, however. Outside of the NFL season, he has started up a program called RefMasters, which builds on that continuous improvement mindset by offering social learning for referees starting up in their career. With officials from other sports (NBA and MLB), he created a social learning app with resources for people who want to learn officiating and opportunities to grow and learn different parts of the game. He believes this will help newer referees better learn the sports and the art of officiating, and help them create a bigger passion for it.
“The biggest threat to sports, especially for young people, is the shortage of officials,” he said. “We’re trying to bridge the gap and connect people. Officiating is not made out to be this great thing, but it’s so not true. The passion that I have for it, the satisfaction we get out of being involved at organized sporting events, you create those connections with people. You get to know the players and coaches. Youth sports are under attack because we’re not doing a great job keeping people in the game to officiate it.”
As part of RefMasters, he also works with refereeing organizations to help improve their processes from organizing documents and betting their scheduling procedures. He also has created RefExec, which allows himself and other referees from other sports to travel to various corporations to help bridge the gap from lessons learned on the field to leadership skills that can be applied in the boardroom.
Brandon said when speaking with Mines students, he likes to encourage them to find their passion, and go for it, no matter what your degree is in.
“Have an open mind and try everything, put yourself in new experiences, and get a little uncomfortable,” he said. “If we can teach people how to find their passion and go do something that gives them energy and gives them a drive to go succeed, how fortunate am I to have that. This may not be the classic job title for a School of Mines graduate, but what I learned at School of Mines, that great education I achieved, I think it’s a huge part of why I made it to the NFL. The greatest thing I ever did was to step on that field.”