In the big leagues

Few careers can match the allure of professional sports. So, when the Jepson Student Government Association decided to launch “Leadership: The Room Where It Happens,” a program featuring leadership studies alumni speaking about their professions, it invited Buffalo Bills assistant offensive line coach Austin Gund, ’15, and Texas Rangers baseball operations and pro scouting assistant Matt Dacey, ’18, to kick off the inaugural event.

On April 3, the two alumni led an informal discussion of leadership in professional sports for some 25 leadership studies students, faculty, and staff in the Westhampton Deanery Living Room. Both men recalled the thrill of breaking into professional sports, where, in the words of Gund, “You deal with the best of the best!”

Almost two years after graduating from University of Richmond’s Jepson School of Leadership Studies in 2015, Gund, a former Spiders Football offensive lineman and three-time captain, left his Wells Fargo Insurance Services job to become an offensive quality control coach at the University of Delaware.

“During my first year of coaching, I didn’t know anything,” he said. “But I was learning. When Delaware offensive line coach Blaine McCorkle — who had been my position coach at Richmond — went to Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi, he asked me to be his offensive line coach there. I told him, ‘I’m not ready!’ He said, ‘Yes, you are!’ You just do it. And then you think, if I can do that, what else can I do?”

In 2020, the young coach moved to Wake Forest University, a Division I school that offered a professional step up from coaching at Division III Belhaven. While coaching at Wake Forest, Gund also enrolled in a master’s program in liberal arts and sciences there. Then in February 2022, shortly after graduating, he got a phone call: “The Buffalo Bills offered me a coaching job at 4 p.m. on a Friday. I was at work the following Monday morning.”

Gund said he follows the directions of head coach Sean McDermott and focuses on building confidence when leading the offensive linemen. “If I’m confident, I’m a better coach,” he said. “If my guys are confident, they play better. I love my guys, and I love being surrounded by good people.

“I wear a lot of hats as a coach. One of my duties is constantly evaluating our players, other players across the NFL, and the next crop of players entering the NFL. I work hard to trust my eyes in these evaluations so that the Bills can keep the best players on our roster and in the best positions to succeed.”

Nothing, he said, is more exhilarating than watching your team win. In 2024, the Bills had a great season, earning their fifth consecutive American Football Conference East title and advancing to the AFC Championship. 

For his part, Dacey took a somewhat unusual path for a Spider scholar-athlete. He transferred to Richmond as a sophomore and played for Spiders Baseball in 2014 and 2015 before being drafted by the Tampa Bay Rays. After playing minor league ball for three seasons, he returned to Richmond to finish his undergraduate degree. Then he played two more seasons of professional baseball in the independent Frontier League.

Next, he attended law school at Villanova University. As a third-year law student, he interned with the sports and media talent agency Wasserman. He said he caught the attention of the Texas Rangers Baseball Club while working at Wasserman on multi-million-dollar contracts for professional baseball players. After graduating from law school in May 2023, he joined the Rangers as an operations intern in time to see them win the World Series a few months later.

One of his biggest challenges as a new employee was figuring out what he did and didn’t know.

“I came in with five years of pro playing experience, and only a few of my direct front office coworkers had similar experience,” Dacey said. “At times I thought I was a know-it-all, but I could not have been more wrong. The organization does a lot of things that I wasn’t privy to as a player. I learned where I could and couldn’t provide insight.”

Following the 2024 MLB season, Dacey was promoted to an operations and pro scouting position. This spring, he traveled to Arizona to scout 200 plus players. The key to scouting, he said, is to trust yourself: “When I’m asked to provide my opinion on something that’s contrary to the general consensus, I try to be authentic and not change my opinion based on what someone else thinks.”

Like Gund, Dacey revels in being around top-tier athletes.

Recently he’s been operating the Rangers’ new pitching machine for the players. “I’m not supposed to be in the same room as Corey Seager!” Dacey exclaimed, referring to the Rangers’ star shortstop. “I’m nowhere near the athlete these guys are! But now they know my name. When players say thanks for helping us out today, when they hang out and talk to me, I appreciate it. That’s the embodiment of being a good teammate.”

Enthralled by the conversation, Jepson students peppered the alums with questions. Gund offered them some simple advice tied to the life-changing phone call he received from the Bills in February 2022: “Do the best job possible wherever you are, so that someone will pick up the phone for you.”