College of William and Mary
College of William and Mary
30/08/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 30/08/2024 22:31
47 years after ‘stolen joy,’ Bruso finds it again with a William & Mary degree
47 years after 'stolen joy,' Bruso finds it again with a William & Mary degree
More than four decades after a W&M coach initially contacted him about enrolling, Carl "Skip" Bruso '24 earned a degree from the university.
Published August 30, 2024
Carl "Skip" Bruso '24 holds a photo of himself from when he was a young wrestling star. It was a wrestling coach who first reached out to Bruso about William & Mary. (Photo by Stephen Salpukas)
Already a budding wrestling star, Carl "Skip" Bruso '24 was a 10th grader in a Virginia Beach high school the day he received his first recruiting letter.
William & Mary Coach Ed Steers wrote that he was keeping tabs on him, looking forward to following his future exploits. He'd be a fine addition to the program when the time came.
Bruso's dream was to become a NCAA national wrestling champion. The letter represented the first step towards that dream by showing the young man that a university as prestigious as William & Mary was taking notice. He sprinted to practice and showed his teammates the letter.
A wrestler whose name he doesn't even remember rebuked him. He told him he wasn't William & Mary material.
"You've got to be smart, really smart, to go there," he recalled being told.
Bruso considered his older brother the smart one in the family, not him. He was confident that he could get grades close to that of his brother if his focus was on academics and not wrestling. However, wrestling came first, and he was satisfied being an average student. He took his teammate's words to heart and even though he finished as the state runner-up at 167 pounds as a senior, he never even applied to William & Mary.
"All the wind went out of my sails," he recalled recently, sitting in a lounge area of W&M's Raymond A. Mason School of Business. "Suddenly the confidence I had for myself about getting grades disappeared. That comment made me second guess my intelligence."
His face brightens.
"But 47 years later, here I am, with the really smart people and I'm graduating."
Bruso, now 67 years old, is near the end of a 40-year career in quality assurance, most recently for Norfolk Naval Shipyard. He just completed two summer online courses to officially earn his degree in economics from William & Mary, with a minor in business analytics. He walked with his classmates at May's Commencement ceremony.
"Not getting a college degree has been a thorn in my side for many years," he said, "one of my life's biggest regrets."
Bruso (left) and W&M President Katherine A. Rowe pose for a photo together at the university's Commencement ceremony in May 2024. (Courtesy photo)Following high school, he won a wrestling scholarship to Virginia Commonwealth University. With the program falling apart, and feeling he couldn't improve athletically, Bruso left school after one semester. His dream of becoming an NCAA champion was put on hold.
Returning home, he discovered many of his friends had jobs with Newport News Shipbuilding. They had money. They had new cars. He had neither. Taking a job there was only supposed to be temporary, time to make some money and figure out his next move.
"Three months in, I was approached about the shipyard's Apprentice School," he said. "They had a respectable athletic program that competed against small colleges and most importantly they had a wrestling team."
Ironically, at the Apprentice School, Bruso wrestled against William & Mary. He graduated from the school in 1980 and coached his younger brother in 1981.
In 1985 following the birth of his son, he decided to go back to school. He enrolled at Tidewater Community College, earning 29 credits in engineering. But marriage, parenthood, a new house, and his job "made it easy to quit TCC."
Then in 2014, he read that Old Dominion University was starting a business analytics program. He wondered whether William & Mary offered a program of its own. When the answer was yes, he closed out his time at TCC with a business administration associate degree in 2018, earning a 3.73 grade-point average.
"I was 57; it was now or never," he said. "I told myself I was going to use the same drive I had in wrestling and channel it into my academics."
He used William & Mary's agreement with Virginia community colleges to gain admission and started the 104-mile, traffic-snarled roundtrip from his Chesapeake home to the university three weeks later.
"Every mile to get there was worth it," he said. "I am so happy with my decision. I couldn't have asked for a better educational experience."
Peter Atwater, adjunct professor of economics, has taught older students, mostly military. He calls Bruso a "new experience."
"To say he was driven is an understatement," Atwater explained. "He was determined, and his actions reflected that. He sat in the front row. He came to me during office hours. He asked questions in class. He reviewed his tests and quizzes to figure out what he did wrong and why.
"He wasn't encumbered by the self-consciousness I see with other students."
To pay tuition and expenses, Bruso took money from the family retirement and savings accounts. It wasn't, he admitted, the most popular strategy for a soon-to-be retiree.
"But you know what? I did this for me" he said. "In 2014 my kids were grown. My grandkids were almost grown. I said, 'I'm going to give myself a Father's Day, birthday, Christmas - whatever you want to call it - present.' I took care of a family. I did everything. It's time to spend a little money on dad."
The obvious question now is what to do with his degree. It's not like he's 22, with a long career ahead of him. Maybe consulting, he thinks.
"I can tell you that if I were an employer, I would jump to hire him," Atwater said. "He has demonstrated tenacity, resilience, an eagerness to learn and grit. Who wouldn't want those?"
Bruso bought a piano several years ago. It sits in his dining room, mostly silent. He doesn't play. But there's a spot on the wall just above it. His space, he calls it. That's where he's going to hang his diploma and the memories of what it took to earn it.
His co-workers held a surprise party for him recently. They wondered what advice he might impart to them.
Bruso flashed back to that high school wrestling practice, letter in hand, quivering with excitement, unaware of the cruel, life-altering response from a kid whose name he long ago forgot, though never his message.
"That guy stole my joy that day," he said he told them. "Never - never - let anyone steal yours."
It's taken nearly a half-century, but Bruso's joy has finally been recaptured.
Jim Ducibella, Communications Specialist