Four years into a successful professional indoor soccer career with the Baltimore Blast, Mike Deasel walked away to pursue his dream.
Despite his early success -- four Major Arena Soccer League championship appearances in four years -- the defender always made sure to plan for life after sports.
In 2015, after a ride-along with the Baltimore County Fire Department, he found his calling: firefighting.
"I fell in love with it," Deasel said, "especially the whole team aspect … and working together with everybody. To me it translated -- soccer translated to the fire department."
Deasel had played soccer his whole life. A Kingsville, Md., native and four-year letter winner at Loyola Blakefield, he went on to start 72 games as a defensive midfielder in four seasons at Loyola Maryland before signing with the Blast in 2011, a team he had watched play during his youth.
In the fall of 2015, Deasel endured five months of intense fire academy training, learning everything from emergency medical care to extinguishing simulated fires. He's now more than three years in as a full-time firefighter and works at Station 7 in Essex, Md.