When Branden Smith thinks back to the lessons he learned playing football at the University of St. Thomas, the fifth-year cornerback recalls a series of injuries that caused him to miss playing time.
“Injuries hurt — not just physically but mentally,” he said. “But they teach you to be better than you were before. You can’t stay in the pain. You have to work through it.”
That valuable lesson, Smith and other Tommies found, applies far beyond the gridiron.
This past Saturday, the Tommies ended their 2025 season against perennial powerhouse North Dakota State. For Smith and other seniors, the game potentially marked the end of their playing careers, but certainly not their legacies. That’s because each has wanted to leave the program better than they found it.
"I just want to be remembered as a hard worker, as a guy who just came in and worked his butt off, earned everything and was giving nothing,” said fellow senior cornerback and Chicago native Den Juette. “I want the community to remember me as someone who made this place better than he left it.”
Juette and Smith arrived at St. Thomas from different cities, at different ages, and through different paths, but their stories reveal similar values of resilience in the face of setbacks, discipline on and off the field, and a shared commitment to leadership rooted in service.
All For resilience and discipline
Smith, a peace and justice studies major from Las Vegas, first arrived at St. Thomas hoping to play quarterback. But after he transitioned to cornerback, Smith said the shift felt natural because it sharpened his view of the field.
“I knew the landscape of offense and now I am just seeing it from a different lens,” Smith said.
The move kept him competitive and plugged into the team’s needs before injuries limited his playing time during the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Smith worked his way back on the field to appear in more games this past season than the prior two seasons combined.
He carried that discipline into the classroom as well. Smith has made the Pioneer Football League Academic Honor Roll for three straight years.
“Do what needs to be done, not what you want to do,” he said. “Sometimes that means putting your nose in the books.”
Similar to Smith, Juette, majoring in business management with a minor in sports management, also excelled on the field and in the classroom.
Juette earned a spot on both the 2024 Phil Steele Pioneer Football League All-Conference Team and the 2025 Preseason All-PFL Team. Like Smith, he prioritized academics, becoming a three-time conference academic honor roll student-athlete.
“Student comes before athlete,” Juette, said. “If I can’t handle my business off the field, it’ll be hard to handle it on the field.”
All For community and leadership
As seniors, Juette and Smith understand that leadership extends beyond the field and the classroom. Their legacies, they believed, also meant being leaders in the community.
For Juette’s community involvement, he spent three summers interning with top land use attorneys Brian Liston and Peter Tsantilis at Liston & Tsantilis, P.C. Juette worked behind the scenes on property taxes, commercial leasing and zoning, and joined community initiatives to distribute food and water downtown. He also helped manage collections at St. Peter’s Church in the Loop, located in downtown Chicago.
Juette’s commitment to service is rooted in his family. His late grandfather founded Coleman’s BBQ #2 on Chicago’s West Side, now honored with an honorary street sign.
“Den’s judgment and maturity are beyond his years. He is a man of high integrity and excellent moral character,” Liston said.
Like Juette, Smith also worked to leave a mark in the community. Smith’s impact grew from relationships he formed on campus. While working behind the sandwich counter at T’s in Anderson Student Center a few years ago, he met Father Chris Collins, SJ ’93, St. Thomas vice president for mission and clergy at St. Peter Claver Church in St. Paul. When a St. Peter Claver teacher mentioned wanting a student to speak to her class, Collins immediately thought of Smith.
“She thought it would be great to have a Division I student-athlete come talk to the kids—not just about sports, but about dedication in school and nurturing their relationship with God,” Collins said.
Smith jumped at the chance.
“It’s about looking after the future generations, and motivating them to do what they want to do and be better than the older generations like myself,” Smith said. “I want them to know that you can do anything.”
Together, the two senior defensive backs have truly left their mark.
“We always talk about doing it for the ones who came before you,” Juette, who may have an extra year of eligibility option to return next season, said. “As I step into that role now, it’s about being vocal, uplifting and letting guys know they can do it too.”
