Senior Cayden Buysse juggled football and FFA nationals last week
By Per Peterson
So, what did you do last week?
If you think you had a busy stretch of days, check out Cayden Buysse’s itinerary last week:
Tuesday: Play in a Section 3AA tournament football game (Cayden is the starting center for the Panthers).
Wednesday: Catch a flight to Indianapolis to attend the 91st Annual National FFA Convention & Expo (he was one of four finalists in the United States in the national Fiber Oil Crop Production Proficiency category).
Friday: Fly back home and prepare for another section football game, this one in Pipestone.
And don’t forget about school work and helping his father, Chad, with the harvest.
“Hectic,” Cayden said, describing his week. “Very little sleep in the past week.”
Cayden’s mother, Stacie, served as the travel director for the family. It wasn’t easy, she said.
“You don’t know in the playoff season if Tuesday would’ve been it or not,” she said about the Panthers’ first-round section game. “He had to be (at the convention) Wednesday, so we drove to the Cities Tuesday after the game and flew out at 6:50 in the morning Wednesday.”
The return trip included a stopover in Atlanta, of all places, where they were delayed because of engine problems with their plane. “It was the only night flight we could get out of Indianapolis so he could get back to play football,” Stacie said.
The convention ran from Wednesday through Saturday, but the Buysse’s flew home early so he could join his teammates on the field in Pipestone. Cayden said he felt bad about not being able to practice with the team last week.
“I had to go to this, because if you don’t go, you don’t get your award,” he said, adding that he never felt too overwhelmed with all that was going on. “I just had to think about what I was doing at that moment. When I was at nationals, I couldn’t think of football — I just had to focus on what I was doing there. But then when I got back for football, I had to focus on that.”
“It was a lot of fun,” Cayden’s father, Chad, said of the convention. “It’s a great accomplishment for a young man after all the work that’s put into it. It’s something that he’s done himself. Very proud of him.”
For more on this article, see this week’s Headlight-Herald.