Forged by FAU - Justin Massey
Wajih AlBaroudi
9/13/2020
I saw what it takes to pay for school and I saw what it was like not to pay for anything. So, it really put into perspective the great opportunity and what it really does to say, ‘Hey, you don’t have to worry about any cost associated with school. Just go do your job and you’ll be fine.’Justin Massey
Gallery: Justin Massey
Florida Atlantic basketball alum Justin Massey sat down for a lunch interview at J. Alexander’s and didn’t know what to expect. He knew about Northwestern Mutual, of course, but not the position the company eventually offered him.
The Northwestern Mutual recruiters then told Massey he could help “a lot” of people, run his own business and work under the company’s trusted umbrella as one of their financial advisers.
That’s all Massey needed to hear to take the position.
“I wouldn’t have been introduced to the opportunity if not for Northwestern being present at the different [FAU] athletic events and career fairs and things like that,” said Massey, who started working with Northwestern Mutual in Boca Raton a month after his 2018 graduation. “So, it was kind of the perfect marriage as far as figuring out, ‘Hey, what can I do with myself right out of school that I can start right now, as well as the opportunity being there to start right now.’”
Massey got his college basketball start by being similarly opportunistic. Despite him leading American Heritage to its first ever Florida State Championship and earning All-State honors, Massey had no college scholarship offers as a high school senior. That was “one of the toughest internal things” he faced as an athlete.
But the lack of college interest didn’t stop Massey. Through a mutual friend, he reached out to FAU’s coaching staff and earned a walk-on position for the 2015 season. It was a homecoming for Massey, who attended FAU games as a South Florida youth.
Massey battled in fall camp as a freshman and quickly earned his teammates’ respect. And, the guard soon realized, his coach’s, too: Then-FAU coach Michael Curry told Massey he earned a starting spot for the team’s first scrimmage.
“It was just a pretty cool internal transition as far as going through something where you thought, ‘Hey, I’m in a bad place, I didn’t get a scholarship like everyone else did,’” Massey said, “to I’m starting my first collegiate game where most [other freshmen] maybe didn’t even touch the floor.”
Massey’s hot start carried into the rest of the season, as he eventually recorded 11 starts, hit 40 percent of his 3-pointers and was FAU’s second-leading 3-point shot maker as a freshman.
The immediate playing time Massey earned also gave him a unique game-to-game perspective.
“When I think back on it, there were some games where I really felt no pressure,” Massey said. “Because it was like, ‘Hey, I’m a freshman, I’m not expected to do that well.’ So, that allowed me to play free. But then there were some games on the flipside where, ‘I’m a freshman, I’m expected to play.’ There’s pressure there. So, it was interesting how you get both sides of that. Some games you’re free flowing without expectations, and then some you have a lot, and you’re essentially playing the same game.”
After a strong freshman year at FAU, Massey made the “hardest” decision of his life: transferring to the Ivy League’s Brown University, where his twin brother Jason Massey played basketball. It was a “childhood dream” for Justin to reunite with his twin, as much as he enjoyed his time at FAU and would miss it.
Justin realized that dream in 2016, starting alongside Jason over Brown’s first nine games. But FAU remained on his mind throughout. And as Justin pondered his basketball future, he decided FAU was the best place to spend it and transferred back.
“I knew pretty much from then I wasn’t going to try and do any sort of professional basketball,” Massey said. “So, it was like, ‘Hey if these are going to be my last four years playing in this type of environment this competitively, I want to make sure I enjoy every second of it. And that’s what FAU provided me and what Brown didn’t. So, going [to Brown] was a tough decision; leaving was not a tough decision at all.”
Massey’s return to FAU came with an added perk: an athletic scholarship. The scholarship was “huge,” Massey says, because it allowed his parents to pay for only one tuition per year, his twin brother’s.
Having lived as a walk-on and scholarship player, Massey gained a unique understanding of the student-athlete experience. And it’s an experience he remains grateful for.
“I saw what it takes to pay for school,” Massey said, “and I saw what it was like not to pay for anything. So, it really put into perspective the great opportunity and what it really does to say, ‘Hey, you don’t have to worry about any cost associated with school. Just go do your job and you’ll be fine.’”
Massey was more than fine his senior year at FAU. That 2017-18 season, Massey regained his starting position and was FAU’s top perimeter scorer at 13.8 points per game. He also made SportsCenter’s Top 10 after draining a buzzer-beating, game-winning 3-pointer against Rice.
For Massey, the senior-year surge was meaningful because he knew it was his last as a player. Massey told his coaches before the season he had no professional basketball aspirations, putting all his efforts into the Owls’ success instead.
“It was pretty cool thing to say, ‘I can enjoy my senior year athletically and personally,’ and my coaching staff respected that,” Massey said, “and still gave me the opportunity to put me on the pedestal where I was still able to score a lot, be a primary person on the team, and to help out in all the ways I could.”
While Massey was dominating on the court as a senior, he was also planning for life off it. He graduated from FAU’s College of Business in May 2018 and began training for Northwestern Mutual a month later.
Massey’s fit at Northwestern Mutual has been seamless, as he learned being a 100-percent commission worker requires the skills he honed as an FAU student-athlete.
“You get paid on the results you produce, which comes from effort, the time, the organization, all of that,” said Massey, who does financial advising for clients of virtually all ages and financial backgrounds. “And that’s exactly what it took to be a student-athlete. Managing, leaving on trips and making sure you still submit your assignments when you’re sitting in a hotel in Mississippi somewhere. Or you prepare yourself early, maybe, ‘Hey, I want to finish everything up, so I don’t have to sit in a hotel on an away game doing work.’ So, it’s kind of the same thing here. Some stuff I prepare myself to do early, or just manage to do a lot of things at once. So, I think, time management, the organization and honestly the hustle it takes to be a student-athlete has all transitioned here. It’s a self-starter and self-dependent business, but you have the support – much like with athletics.”
Massey hopes to continue working at Northwestern Mutual for the rest of his career, building a solid client base and serving his community along the way. He also wants to give back to FAU through his work. The company recently gave Massey a great opportunity to do so by naming him a college unit director, which will have him running an internship program for FAU students.
The college unit director role brought Massey full circle: Three years ago, he was the FAU student looking for an opportunity, and now he’s providing it.
“To be able to now sit on the other side of it,” Massey said, “and be that voice of, ‘Hey, this is a great thing you can be doing,’ and explaining why is pretty awesome.”