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Like any good hockey player, Boston College’s Brooks Dyroff likes goals. Lots of them.
The goals achieved by Dyroff, a College of Arts and Sciences sophomore from Boulder, Colo., far surpass the traditional red lamp variety of the on-ice contest: He’s the co-founder of a non-profit organization that has provided higher education opportunities for some 40 teenagers in Indonesia, as well as a growing group of promising students here in Boston.
Dyroff’s efforts in establishing and overseeing this CEO4Teens (Creating Educational Opportunities for Teens) program have earned him the 2011 BNY Mellon Wealth Management Hockey Humanitarian Award, presented annually to “college hockey’s best citizen.”
Dyroff received the award during the recent NCAA “Frozen Four” championship tournament in St. Paul, Minn., becoming the second Boston College skater to capture the prize. Sarah Carlson, a two-time captain of the BC women’s hockey team, won the Humanitarian honor as a senior in 2005 in recognition of her extensive volunteer work at Boston health clinics, shelters and service projects and on various service immersion trips while a Connell School of Nursing undergraduate.
Running the CEO4Teens program while meeting strong academic requirements and practicing and playing a major intercollegiate sport is a challenge Dyroff relishes. He has also found the time to produce several award-winning documentary films; found an after-school math enrichment program for local secondary school pupils; and launch a Micro Finance Program that provides grants to students desiring to launch a business.
“Discipline and time management are things that I have learned over the course of my life,” he says. “I’m always running from one thing to another. As the old saying goes, ‘If you need something done, give it to a busy man.’ I really think that is true. When the hockey season is over, and I have some spare time on my hands, I actually feel that I get less done.”
Dyroff is quick to point out the foundation of his multi-tasking and good works: his parents Wendi Hill and Matt Dyroff.
“Both my Mom and Dad have always been big on giving something back to your community. It’s always been a part of our family, and something I can never thank them enough for.”
The CEO4Teens program is structured to raise money through community service projects and pledges to benefit needy teenagers in Indonesia. It was the idea of Dyroff and Kenny Haisfield, a childhood friend from Boulder, who set the project’s goal to send 10 students who otherwise could not afford the cost of higher education to Campuhan College in Bali, Indonesia each year.
In four years, CEO4Teens has never failed to reach its $10,000 annual fund-raising target, Dyroff says.
Dyroff is currently working to establish a similar educational program in the Boston metropolitan area. He has launched an outreach effort at Roxbury Community College to identify and assist underprivileged local students in earning their high school GED. Last year, the program helped three Boston teens achieve the goal, and Dyroff wants to move that number up to 10 annually.
Eagles’ head coach Jerry York says that he knew Dyroff would enhance the BC hockey program off-ice as well as on while he was recruiting the Colorado native during his post-graduate year at Phillips Andover Academy in Massachusetts.
“It’s amazing what he has been able to accomplish,” says York. “He handles a full hockey schedule with practices, travel and games; a full academic schedule and does very well in school; and in his ‘spare time’ he energizes himself to help others who need it.
“Brooks embodies a lot of what we talk about here at BC. He is really a man for others,” York says. “In a 24-hour segment, Brooks will be a full-time student, a student-athlete at the Division I level, and also manages to devote time to other people. It’s a pretty impressive thing for coaches and others to see.”