Dallas Bunsa is a native of New Jersey, but he got to Texas as fast as he could.
Actually, he took a detour through Wisconsin.
“My grandparents have a lake house there, so I spent five days with my family water skiing and relaxing” before the 900-mile trip to the Big D. His first name “Dallas” is a family name on his father’s side, and “Bunsa” is Slovak.
The second child of seven, he always wanted to attend Notre Dame, but like the famous Rudy Ruettiger, Dallas didn’t get accepted right out of high school.
“I attended Koinonia Academy, a small school. My graduating class had 24 kids in it. With no sports, no AP or honors classes, it was hard to get noticed and into Notre Dame,” he said.
Active in his youth group at Saint Vincent DePaul Catholic Church in New Jersey, his CYO basketball team went undefeated, 20–0, his junior year, where he played forward and won a state championship in the church league, but it wasn’t impressive enough to help him.
Even after serving on a mission trip to Honduras his senior summer, the Notre Dame Admissions committee couldn’t be swayed, so Dallas went to his back-up college at Seton Hall, a small Catholic college located in South Orange, New Jersey, where he joined the honors program and enjoyed his freshman year at college. In fact, he loved Seton Hall so much, known for its strong academics and mission-oriented campus ministry, he almost didn’t reapply to Notre Dame the following spring.
“But then I told myself I wanted ‘no regrets.’ I mean, what if I didn’t apply and could have gotten in? After all, it was my dream school.” As much as he liked Seton Hall, he said, “it was small, a lot like my high school, as if I was in a second senior year, like 13th grade.”
What followed was a pleasant surprise: an acceptance to transfer into Notre Dame his sophomore year.
Another surprise came when he discovered that what he’d been avoiding in high school—reading—was becoming enjoyable.
“I was sort of a math kid, but found myself reading more and more for fun,” Dallas admitted, inspired by the adult chaperone in his dorm, “so I read whatever Father Sean McGraw suggested.”
Notre Dame has a program in Liberal Studies that focuses on literature and philosophy, so Dallas majored in it. He took a personality test his senior year to find out where his interests and gifts lay and learned he had the perfect personality to be a teacher.
“The ACE program is really big on the Notre Dame campus, so everywhere you go you are encouraged to go into it, or to consider becoming a teacher after graduation,” Dallas said. “And the idea of getting a Master’s in teaching from Notre Dame really appealed to me.”
The university has far more applicants than it can take for the ACE program, but that didn’t stop him from applying. This time, Dallas didn’t have to wait a year.
“I was thrilled to be accepted and begin the next part of my journey in life,” Dallas said, but he was confused the day the assignments came out. “You get your placement letter sort of like doctors get their residency assignments, with everyone opening their envelope together. I saw my name on my document twice and thought—yes, yes, I know my name is Dallas but where am I going to teach?”
He had to ask a friend where to look for his teaching destination, and that was when he found out he’d be coming to Texas.
Now he’s thrilled to be in the Lone Star State, where he’d never even visited before. He arrived on the hottest day of the year.
“105 degrees—that was a bit of a shock,” he said, yet he feels fortunate to be living with six other ACE student-teachers, including four new to the program and two “veterans,” Maria Eugenio and Stephen Labreque, who will be back teaching at Bishop Dunne for their second year.
“I can count on Maria and Stephen to show me around town and help me at Dunne,” Dallas said. "Having them by my side is a real blessing.”
Dallas is busy putting together his lesson plans for his classes. He’ll be teaching 7th grade literature, 7th grade religion and will be an assistant basketball coach helping out the Varsity team and Head Basketball Coach Michael Alfers.
On the first day of school, this transplanted Yankee had little trouble blending in. With a name like “Dallas,” he already sounds like a Texan.
Story and photo courtesy of Judy Porter, Bishop Dunne Catholic School