Burro assistant coach patrols sidelines

By MARK THUESON
If you plan a trip through or around east central North Dakota, watch your speedometer and obey the law.
Otherwise, you’ll see the flashing reds of a squad car on your tail with Trooper Tracy Buzick behind the wheel.
On October 1, he celebrated 12 years as a veteran of the North Dakota Highway Patrol. After training at the police academy, he picked Finley, N.D., to be his first assignment. Buzick enjoyed his time there, but was soon given the opportunity to help lay down the law in another location: Hillsboro.
To this day, he still ventures around the Finley area, though, so don’t be fooled into a false sense of speeding security there.
Trooper Buzick has seen just about anything you can imagine, including horrific car accidents and drinking and driving. He has even stopped people who were born the same year he graduated from high school. This made him think a little, and chuckle to himself after the fact.
Trooper Buzick gives a couple of reminders as warnings. One was on drinking and driving: “Drinking and driving – there’s no excuse.” And if you do try drinking and driving, he’ll catch you. That may be one reason his friends at the local Stop -N-Go call him “Batman.”
His second warning was about speeding: “Obey the stop signs. Obey the speed limits. Speed kills.”
Aside from the standard law enforcement duties he performs, Trooper Buzick teaches classes such as driver’s education and tractor safety. He feels that it is a great opportunity to interact with the community while teaching good ethics for the highway.
When Trooper Buzick is finished for the day ensuring people obey the rules of the road, he switches hats to become Assistant Coach Buzick for the Hillsboro Burro football team.
It’s really a family affair. He gets help from his son, Logan, in the official position of water boy.
“It’s fun having him there,” Buzick said. Hannah, his daughter, “gets to do the ‘girl’ stuff” while they are at the game.
Buzick is the linemen coach, and is doing it without pay, or “just for fun” as he likes to say.
“I love it! I absolutely have fun doing it! I have the best part!”
Coach Buzick played college football at North Dakota State University for five years: three of them as a tight end and two as an offensive tackle.
Coach Buzick motivates the team before each practice by having the team bring a joke to share so the spirit is positive. After sharing an uplifting humorous moment, Coach Buzick enlightens the team with an inspirational quote to help the players get their game face on.
He tells the players, “All sports are an individual sport on some level. You do something wrong, you let yourself down. But more important – you let the team down.”
Buzick’s motto, which people look up to him for, is that you “just gotta be straightforward.”
While on the sidelines, Coach Buzick makes sure that he is into the game.
“I don’t yell at anybody, I just yell,” he said. He wants to make sure the team members are giving their all.
Aside from all this, Buzick also serves on the school board as one of five members, making decisions that affect the future of the youth in the Hillsboro school system. He was appointed to the position in 2004, but ran for re-election, so has continued for the two years since.
Buzick is also the president of the Hillsboro Recreation District, which was formed about a year ago. It serves the community by running community-wide activities such as the Pass, Punt and Kick contest; summer Legion baseball; T-ball; golf; tennis; and other sports. The recreation board also offers a computer class and runs the summer reading program.
“Somewhere in there, I find time to work, I guess,” Buzick said as he laughed.
Buzick lives in Hillsboro with his wife, Jodi, and two children, Hannah and Logan. He very much enjoys living there and wouldn’t trade it for the world.