Football July 04, 2014 USF

Former Bull Buie Now Serving the Red, White and Blue

By TOM ZEBOLD

USF Senior Writer

TAMPA, JULY 4, 2014 – Jarriett Buie once chased down quarterbacks as a Bull and now he's marching to a different beat as a member of the military.

The former USF defensive end is in his third year as a specialist in the U.S. Army after finishing his pro football career with the Arena Football League's Tampa Bay Storm in 2011.

“I wanted to do something out of the ordinary. Looking back on it, I wish I would have done ROTC while I was at USF,” said Buie, a Tampa native, who recently visited campus while he was on leave.

The 28-year-old got into the military mindset at the end of his football career after accomplishing quite a bit as a Bull and beyond. The former Armwood High School standout played for USF from 2006-2008 and he made his biggest impact as a senior, registering five of his seven career sacks.

Buie helped the Bulls rise to No. 2 in the nation in 2007, weeks after posting five QB hurries and two tackles for loss in the program's upset victory of No. 5 West Virginia before an electric crowd of 67,012 at Raymond James Stadium.

“I'm always talking about sports and (soldiers) always want to know what guys I played with,” said Buie, who still wears a pair of his USF football shorts around the base. “My battle buddies are always very interested. It's good stuff to talk about, the memories and how hard we played in the games.”

Buie went on to spent time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2009 and he played for the United Football League's Florida Tuskers before putting together a solid 2011 season with the Storm. Buie finished third on the team with 6.5 sacks during his AFL rookie season and he tied a single-game franchise record by racking up 4.5 sacks against the Orlando Predators.

“I ended getting hurt that next game and I was thinking about what I wanted to do,” he said. “I had put in job applications and the first thing that opened up was the military.”

Buie has made an impressive career out of serving our country here and from afar. Earlier this year, he was stationed for training at Fort Bliss in Texas after spending almost the entirety of 2013 deployed in Behrain, a small island country near the western shores of the Persian Gulf.

“I was in the patriot unit and if somebody wanted to shoot something at us in the United States we have these counter missiles that shoot it out of the air,” he said. “I was a gate guard and if someone tried to come in to disable radar or something, I was protecting the front.”

Buie described his time far away from home as “long” but he made the most of it by continuing his education and he's only four or five classes away from earning a master's degree in business administration.

“I had a lot of time to myself, so I started working on a master's program online. You have to have something to keep you busy,” he said.

Buie had the honor of receiving a specialist rank when he enlisted in the Army because went in with a college degree he earned at USF.

“I thought it was the closest thing I could relate to just because of the conditioning, structure and discipline,” said Buie, who credits his time with USF football for putting him on the path to success.

Buie has recently been re-stationed in Washington and another trip overseas may be in the cards before his initial Army contract is up next August.

“I wanted to travel and see different things and the military has been providing that,” he said.

Learn more about Buie's time at USF at his player bio page HERE.