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In a first for Blacklight on Sports, hosts Dr. Mitchell Palmer McDonald and Charles Hallman welcomed a father-and-son duo to the show. Jamison Rusthoven, a longtime educator, coach, and administrator in the Twin Cities, sat down alongside his son Trey, a 22-year-old professional golfer pursuing his dream on the APGA Tour. The conversation ranged from coaching sacrifices and family-first decisions to the very real barriers that minority golfers face in a predominantly white sport.
A Career Built in the Twin Cities
Jamison Rusthoven’s resume in Minnesota sports and education is extensive. A product of St. Agnes and St. Thomas, where he played football, he got his first real coaching break from Clem Haskins with the University of Minnesota Gophers. From there, he spent nearly 16 years in the Minneapolis Public Schools, teaching and coaching basketball, football, and track while eventually serving as athletic director at Minneapolis Southwest and later Edison.
His pursuit of college coaching took him from Concordia St. Paul to MCTC, where in two seasons his teams went 56-4 alongside coaches Gates and Pevic. He went on to serve five years as head coach at St. Mary’s University, building what he described as arguably the best recruiting classes in the conference in his final three seasons. After St. Mary’s he moved to Lindenwood University in Missouri before stepping away from college basketball entirely to prioritize his family and eventually transition to a leadership role at Delta Airlines.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Jamison said. “You have to listen to what he’s telling you what you need to do.”
Putting Family First
The decision to leave college coaching was not made on a whim. Jamison had watched both of his children begin to excel in their sports during the very springs and summers that college recruiting consumed. Trey was emerging as one of the top junior golfers in Minnesota, lettering on the varsity golf team as a seventh grader alongside kids who would go on to play at Minnesota, Notre Dame, and St. Thomas. His daughter, now a sophomore thrower at North Dakota State and a USA Track and Field All-American, was going to state in shot put as a freshman.
“I’m sitting in Hutchinson, Kansas missing some of his golf stuff, missing some of my daughter’s volleyball stuff, and I’m thinking to myself, it’s midnight, I’m watching kids that I know we’re not going to get,” Jamison said. “What am I doing?”
He stepped away from 20 years of college coaching to be present, a decision he has never regretted.
“I truly believe that because of that they’ve been able to reach the potential that they have,” he said. “If they’re asking, we have to feed.”
Trey Rusthoven: Born to Play
Trey Rusthoven has loved golf since his father put a pair of blue plastic clubs in his hands at age two. Growing up a multi-sport athlete through football, basketball, and golf, he credits the variety with keeping him from burning out on the game he loves most.
“Golf is such a mental sport,” Trey said. “When I got that break, I would come back better mentally. I could only take so much golf, even though it was my love.”
He knew golf was his calling in seventh grade when he lettered on varsity and realized he could compete with high school seniors. After one year at Central Michigan, where the coaching fit was not right, he entered the transfer portal and turned professional. He now competes on the APGA Tour, an organization focused on giving minority golfers the opportunity to chase their dreams of making the PGA Tour.
“When I’m showing up to these APGA tournaments, everybody looks like me,” he said. “It’s like a family there.”
Outside of the APGA, the reality of golf’s demographics is stark. Trey noted that diversity in the sport still has a long way to go, and that awareness is what drives his growing community work.
Giving Back Through the Trey Rusthoven Foundation
On the day of the Blacklight on Sports recording, Trey had been at the Solomon Hughes Foundation clinic in Minneapolis, demonstrating his warmup routine, working on putting games, and teaching minority youth about the sport that shaped him.
“Golf teaches you so many life lessons,” he said. “If I can teach these kids golf and just the life lessons it gives, that’s perfect for me.”
He is also developing the Trey Rusthoven Foundation, which will host clinics and create opportunities for minority kids to be introduced to and develop in the game of golf, including a pathway for those who simply want to enjoy it as a hobby, not just pursue it professionally.
Pearls of Wisdom
Trey’s closing message was for anyone who has ever faced a moment where the thing they love felt like it was slipping away.
“If you truly have a passion in something that you love, continue to chase,” he said. “I could have given up on golf after that first year. But I knew I would find a path somehow.”
Jamison’s message was simpler and broader.
“Just be a good person,” he said. “I think sometimes it gets clouded a lot. Not good people are rewarded a lot right now. But if we think about our mentors and those that have influenced us, they were good people. Be a contributor. Work hard. Be passionate about something. But more than anything else, just be a good person.”
Read Dr. Mitchell Palmer McDonald and Charles Hallman every week in the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.