VIDEO: Game highlight of Cleve Wester
At 12 years old, Cleveland “Cleve” Wester had already laid out his life goals. It was the mid-1970s in Boynton Beach, Florida, a picturesque coastal town on the cusp of experiencing a population boom. But when Wester looked around his underprivileged neighborhood, he saw poverty, rampant drug use and even murder. He knew he needed to get out if he was going to live out his wildest dreams. To be sure, those dreams sounded exceedingly wild, like his aspirations of playing in the National Football League.
Knowing little about what he was getting into, Wester packed heart, desire, passion and dogged determination along with him on his journey to the plains of Nebraska. At 18 years of age, Wester was prepared to leave his childhood behind and quickly grow into a man.
“I came from a poor family in Florida,” Wester said. “Abuse, low income – all these things that are stacked against you and you shouldn’t make it. My blessing was getting on the plane to come to Nebraska in June (of 1982). I came there early. All I had was a little duffel bag. I said, ‘Mom, I’m never coming home to live here again. I can’t live like this.’”
On a sweltering hot Friday in the middle of June in the present day 2025, Wester relives these memories, some still as thick as if they occurred just yesterday. In his office in Slidell, Louisiana, Wester proudly displays the No. 31 Detroit Lions jersey he wore for three games back in 1987. It stands as a symbol of where he’s been and how far he’s come. For the past five years, Wester has served as the President and CEO of the Youth Service Bureau (YSB), which has offices in four different Louisiana cities. The mission of the nonprofit organization is to provide advocacy, counseling, education and intervention for at-risk youth and their families in the local St. Tammany and Washington Parishes.
As CEO of YSB, Wester isn’t afraid to do whatever it takes. As he says, sometimes you have to be willing to get your hands dirty. As Wester discusses his daily routine, oftentimes entailing 12-hour workdays, he mentions his weekend plans of cutting down trees outside of his office building. On many days, he’ll spend time meeting with potential donors or serving on organizational boards of directors, making sure YSB remains in the public consciousness. As he says, “This is not a rich state, so you have to hustle.” Wester has been hustling in the nonprofit realm ever since 1988, dedicating roughly two decades of his life to the cause in Michigan before another 10 years in his home state of Florida and now Louisiana.
It's a life Wester was meant for. Said Wester, “One year I did an internship with the Lions. I was thinking about going to be an NFL scout. It kind of hit me. Something didn’t feel right. God didn’t want me to continue with sports. I prayed on it. I told myself I was going to go back and work with kids and families for the rest of my life. That’s when sports was done with me. I dedicated my life to nonprofit. I’ve been doing that since 1988.”
But first, Wester was determined to chase that NFL dream. If it was going to happen, it was going to start with college football. In the early 1980s, Wester knew nothing of Concordia. His first exposure to the school occurred late in his high school career when then Concordia track & field coach John Knight made a visit to Lake Worth High School in Boynton Beach. At 5-foot-9 on a good day, Wester was easy to overlook, but he could run like the wind. At Concordia, Wester would have the opportunity for immediate playing time on the football field and to compete as a dual-sport athlete.
In 1982, Lake Worth teammates Rick Pinkney and Johnny Bush joined Wester at Concordia. Perhaps Wester could have gone to a bigger school, but Concordia felt like the place he belonged. As Wester explains, “To me, college was business. Kids come to college and they like to party and all that stuff. I didn’t do all that stuff. It was business because if I failed, I had to go back home. Academics were hard. We had tutors and things like that, but God blessed me to make it. I had to work at it. I trained all the time – lifting weights, catching footballs, working on my speed and academics. I got help with studying. My goal was to graduate on time.”
Because Wester arrived so early in the summer, he already knew the playbook by the time August camp rolled around. Head Coach Larry Oetting and his staff learned quickly that the then 165-pound running back had the tools to succeed at an incredibly high level. As Oetting was quoted as saying in a 1985 Lincoln Journal Star article, “He runs well, but his intensity level is so high. He’s one of a kind.”
Wester’s game-breaking skills were on display in just the second game of his college career when he, donning No. 32, returned a punt 89 yards for a touchdown in a 34-0 win over Tarkio. With opponents unaware of just how dangerous he was, the freshman version of Wester returned 28 punts for a still-intact school single season record of 428 punt return yards. As a rookie, Wester used his 4.4 40-yard dash speed to pile up 1,414 all-purpose yards and 10 total touchdowns.
Oetting would have had a hard time trading Wester for any running back at the NAIA level at the time. As Oetting told a reporter, “Cleve has to be the best back in the NAIA. I think he’s the best punt returner in the nation. He’s very elusive, and he’s a total team player.” In talking about his former coach, Wester remarked, “Coach O – what a great man. He started the foundation for me to be a good person. It was more than football.”
Statistically, Wester’s best season at running back came his junior year of 1984 when he set then program single season standards with 1,114 yards rushing and 13 touchdowns. Most of that production occurred in only seven games as Wester suffered a strained knee and twisted ankle while returning a punt in the eighth game of the ’84 season. In that same campaign, Wester rushed for 241 yards and three touchdowns versus Northwestern, burned Dana for 243 yards and a touchdown and scorched Benedictine for 206 yards and two touchdowns.
As a senior in 1985, Wester passed the great Gary Seevers for program all-time records for rushing yards and total touchdowns, ultimately finishing his Concordia career with 3,731 yards and 46 touchdowns (both records that stand to this day), along with more than 5,300 all-purpose yards. Along the way, Wester routinely played through pain as the workhorse and focal point of the offense. Athletic trainer and equipment manager Stan Schlueter marveled at how quickly Wester would recover after a painful injury.
As the numbers piled up and Wester kept pulling in accolades, he stayed loyal to Concordia. “I wouldn’t trade it for nothing,” Wester said of his experience. “At one time I thought about transferring to a bigger school. I was like, ‘You know what, I’m going to do it right here.’ I felt at home. I was blessed they gave me an opportunity to come to Concordia. I would never do anything different. I would come right back to Concordia and do the same thing. That’s where I started becoming a man. You can do anything you want to do if you put your mind to it. God blessed you. When you pray about it, things can happen, and it did.”
In the spring of 1986, Wester accomplished one of the goals he had as a 12-year-old: graduate from college. Wester persevered and jumped a hurdle in one particular instance when his grades teetered on the brink of taking him off the football field. It was a wake-up call that pushed Wester on to earning his degree in social work. He had a plan for whenever his football career ended.
Not long after graduation, Wester signed a contract with the Jacksonville Bulls of the United States Football League. However, the USFL folded before Wester could even play a game with Jacksonville, forcing him to re-evaluate his options. The Detroit Lions were one of three NFL teams (along with the Minnesota Vikings and New England Patriots) that had scouted Wester during his time at Concordia.
When the NFL strike of 1987 occurred, Wester signed a contract with the Lions. It reportedly paid him roughly $3,000 per game (according to an October 1987 article in the Lincoln Journal Star). On Oct. 4, 1987, Wester made his NFL debut against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a game played at the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit. In a 1987 news article published in the Detroit Free Press, Wester was referred to by teammate Stan Edwards as a “little bitty scatback from Concordia College.”
Wester played in three NFL games, rushing for 113 yards on 33 carries. Even in just three games, the physical toll left a mark on Wester, who suffered a concussion and sat out for most of his third and final game as an NFL player. Once the strike ended, Wester and many other replacement players were left to return to their former professional lives. As Wester told the Journal Star in ’87, “Just getting that experience – that’s what I want. It’s hard to get through that door and make it in the NFL. I just want to prove I can play.”
Wester tried to soak up the experience as much as possible, as painful as it was considering the concussion and thigh bruise he endured. Says Wester nearly 40 years later, “In the pros, they hit harder. I can tell you that right now. It was like a dream. You get all the butterflies in your stomach. Once you take that first hit, everything is changed. You’re just as good as everybody else. It’s all about the opportunity.”
When football went away, Wester knew what to do next. He immersed himself in a life of service while looking out for the young kids with similar backgrounds and the same dreams he harbored back in 1976. As he advises those children, sports can’t be everything. Education is important and so too is faith in God. Wester himself grew up in the church, but he didn’t have the type of role model he aspires to be for Louisiana children who need guidance.
That’s not to say Wester has forgotten his roots. He attempts to return to Boynton Beach every three months to see his stepfather and to make sure he has everything he needs.
Every experience in his journey helped shape him – from those childhood years of meager living in Boynton Beach to the four years of college life in Nebraska to a short run in the NFL to a career in uplifting the people who need it most. In the nearly 40 years since graduation, Wester has twice returned to Concordia – once to take his place within the school’s Athletics Hall of Fame (in 2004) and once to play in a full-pads alumni game. He says he hopes to get back for a game again sometime.
No matter how small his Concordia career appears in the rearview mirror, Wester retains enriching memories. He thinks about the brick roads downtown, a local pizza joint and the relationships he formed. That time set a foundation for where his path would eventually lead. A young adult Wester was constantly reminded of his financial status. When other students would depart for holiday breaks, Wester would sneak his way into the dorms rather than pay for transportation back to Florida. When no one was looking, there was Wester, doing push ups on his dorm room floor, always preparing for something bigger.
You say you don’t think someone from Concordia will be noticed by NFL scouts? As Wester said, “I’m getting bigger and I’m going to the NFL. Scouts are going to come here, and they’re going to see. People didn’t believe that. You’re at a small Christian school. You’ll see. That’s what I did at nighttime. I did pushups. I was trying to get stronger. I was only 5-8 and some change.”
For Wester, his heart isn’t as easily measured. Determination, desire and a trust in God’s plan enabled Wester to achieve each of the goals that his 12-year-old self dreamed about back in Boynton Beach. To this day, Wester still feels the hits he took on the football field, admitting that it’s difficult for him to sleep through the night.
Never one to lack confidence, Wester says he could still give it a go today. He’s not at his former playing weight anymore. He describes himself as thick but “still fit.” He plays golf, works out and rides horses in his free time. He lights up when asked about Concordia and his time wearing No. 32. Says Wester, “That was the best experience I had – college. I wouldn’t trade it for nothing.”
He adds, “I wouldn’t trade my life for anything. I love being the President and CEO for an organization that helps kids and families – keep kids safe. That’s what I wanted to do with my life at 12 years old.”
Cleve Wester’s Concordia Career Statistics (1982-85):
- Rushing: 738 attempts for 3,731 yards and 38 touchdowns
- Receiving: 68 receptions for 779 yards and five touchdowns
- Punt Returns: 56 returns for 779 yards and three touchdowns
- 5,306 all-purpose yards
- 46 total touchdowns