Belonging Beyond the Locker Room: What Student Athletes Teach Us About Community at Work

When companies talk about hiring for a “culture fit,” they usually mean they want someone who will adapt to the culture that already exists.

Former student athletes tend to arrive with a reference point most candidates don’t have. They’ve already lived inside real team culture — the kind built on shared stakes, mutual accountability, trust that has to be earned, and the experience of failing in front of people who still show up for you the next day.

At Dexian, we try to build a culture worth finding. We spoke with four athletes-turned-Dexians to get some real insight into how their experiences on the field translated to experiences in the field.

Your Red Shirt Year

For Samantha Nosler, a Division I soccer player at Drake and now an Account Manager in our Des Moines office, the transition from college athletics to a career in sales wasn’t the shock most people expect. Moving from Indiana to Iowa at eighteen, knowing nobody, joining a team she hadn’t yet earned her place on — that was already behind her.

“The transition wasn’t as crazy as people might think,” she said. “You have your built-in people. You should kind of feel that culture aspect in the interview process.” What she was doing, without using these words, was pattern-matching. She knew what a real team felt like. She was checking whether this one qualified.

Her first year at what was then Signature Consultants, she treated it the way she’d treated her first year of college soccer: as a red shirt year. Lots of learning, some near-misses, incremental trust-building. “My first three months I probably had no idea what a Java developer was,” she said, “but building that trust — to eventually be like, OK, I know Sam’s going to do this, she’s going to do it right — that’s what it was about.”

Rachel German made a similar kind of bet before she ever set foot in a sales office. A competitive cheerleader since age six who cheered all four years at USC, Rachel committed to the school before she knew whether she’d make the team. Seven hundred miles from home, no guaranteed spot, all in anyway. That instinct — to commit before the outcome is certain — turns out to be exactly what sales requires.

What Real Belonging Looks Like

Most companies build belonging through programs: onboarding sequences, mentorship structures, team events, generally more formalized opportunities. What athletes describe is something harder to schedule. It’s accumulated in smaller moments — someone answering a question without making you feel stupid for asking it, a senior teammate who pushes you because they want the team to win, not just themselves.

Dan Sheeran, an ERP Practice Lead in Boston who played football and baseball at Union College, named something specific about his team at Dexian that doesn’t show up in any culture deck: they’re not afraid to ask questions. “That’s the biggest thing about our team,” he said. “They push me to be the best version of myself — and we’re not only working together, we’re working to be the best versions of ourselves every day.”

That’s a particular kind of belonging. Not warmth for its own sake, but a shared commitment to improvement that makes the environment feel safe enough to be honest. Athletes recognize that culture because they’ve lived inside it. When it’s missing, they notice that too.

The Part You Can’t Control

There’s a version of the athlete-to-sales story that’s all about competitiveness and drive — the hunger to win, the tolerance for rejection, the ability to get back on the phone after a deal falls apart, and the discipline to do it all over again tomorrow. That’s real, but it’s not the whole picture.

Samantha put her finger on something more specific. In soccer, when something goes wrong, she could usually trace it back to herself — a bad pass, a bad touch, a decision she made. “I could control that,” she said. In sales, you can do everything right and still lose. The other person just says no. “You can control everything within yourself, but the other huge aspect of your job is the other people — and you just can’t.”

Benjamin Abely, a sprinter who ran D3 track at Lasell University and now works as an Account Manager in Boston, sees the same duality in how track prepared him. You’re always chasing your own personal records, your own best times — but at a team meet, you’re also cheering for your teammates to score points, because the team’s win depends on both. “You’re trying to increase your GP, getting as many deals as you can,” he said, “but at the same time you’re hopeful and wishing for your team members to do the same.”

When They Become the Coach

The part of this story that doesn’t get told enough is what happens after the red shirt year ends.

Rachel has now mentored four people at Dexian. As a Delivery Lead, she thinks about it the way her own mentor Jared framed it for her when she got promoted: lead by example. If she’s locked in, on the phone, doing the work, her mentees will follow. If she’s not, they’ll notice that too.

She remembers exactly what it felt like to be new. She was so nervous on her first call that she hung up twice. When her mentees are struggling, she doesn’t rush past it. She sets their day up, gives them a search string, and checks in at noon. When she has a deal she doesn’t need, she gives it away.

“Getting off the ground is so hard,” she said. “If there’s an easy role on the board and I’m doing pretty well this month — here you go. I know how much that would have meant to me just to have a little win.”

That’s the cycle, fully closed. You arrive not knowing what a Java developer is. Someone extends you trust before you’ve earned it. A few years later, you’re manufacturing early wins for someone who needs them. Athletes don’t just understand that dynamic. They expect it. And in an industry where some people leave because they never felt seen, that expectation might be one of the most valuable things they bring through the door.