Brett Taylor will tell you he's had a few career chapters — some planned, some not even close.

There was the one where he was a linebacker for Western Illinois University, having crossed town two weeks after graduating from Macomb High School in 2013 to move into the dorms. There was the one where he signed with the Minnesota Vikings as an undrafted free agent. The one where he coached high school football in Alabama, substituted as a teacher, and spent time as a phlebotomist at a blood bank while his wife finished veterinary school. And then there was the one nobody could have scripted: a four-year career with the United States Secret Service, followed by a position as a Special Agent with the FBI.

He's 29 years old.

Western recruited him during his junior year of high school, but a coaching change after his senior season threw everything into uncertainty. Eastern Michigan offered. Missouri State offered, and he visited and was close to saying yes. He came home instead.

"I grew up going to all the games," he said. "I just wanted to see the Leathernecks good again."

He played linebacker at Western, earned a bachelor's degree in Recreation, Park and Tourism Administration with a minor in law enforcement — a minor he picked up almost by accident, because the classes were interesting and he had the time — then added a master's in Sport Management. The plan, loosely, was athletics administration. Maybe coaching. Maybe eventually becoming an athletic director. Law enforcement wasn't on the radar.

Then the Vikings called.

He signed as an undrafted free agent in 2018, wore the purple and gold, and got an education. "Those guys are just built differently," he said with a laugh. "I simply wasn't good enough to stay around." No bitterness. Just honesty, and maybe a little appreciation for having been in the room.

With football behind him and Madison finishing her DVM at Auburn, Taylor was coaching at Auburn High School and casting around for what came next. A conversation with Lee Russell — an all-American linebacker from Western who had built a career with the Secret Service — opened a door he hadn't considered. By age 24, Taylor had applied and been hired.

What followed was extraordinary. For three to four years, he worked as part of the Secret Service's Special Operations Division — no suit and tie, as he was happy to note — serving on emergency medicine, hazmat, and tactical teams under both the Trump and Biden administrations. He traveled the country, worked at the United Nations, and went to the Vatican. He was on duty through COVID, through the civil unrest of 2020, through January 6.

"It was definitely an interesting time," he said.

In 2022, with Madison finishing school and the travel tempo of Secret Service life taking its toll, he made a move. He applied to the FBI — what he calls the premier law enforcement agency in the United States — and got hired. Then came Orders Night: the moment in FBI Academy training where recruits stand in front of their class, open an envelope, and find out where life is taking them next.

Taylor's envelope said Salt Lake City.

"I got super lucky," he said. "It's been absolutely amazing."

He and Madison — who grew up in Canton, just forty minutes from Macomb, and ran track and cross country at Western — have built a life there with their two large dogs. Madison practices as a veterinarian. And it turns out that in Salt Lake City, people know exactly where Macomb is — because roughly 80 percent of the people Taylor meets have passed through Nauvoo on the way to or from some LDS pilgrimage.

"They're like, 'Oh, I know exactly where it's at. We stayed in a hotel the night before,'" he said.

The thing he carries from Macomb, he'll tell you, isn't the football or the credentials. It's simpler than that.

"No one's a stranger in Macomb," he said. Growing up in a place where a grocery run turns into a two-hour conversation — where everyone shows up for the game, where everyone's watching out for everyone — gives you something that travels. The ability to connect with anyone, anywhere. An instinct for trust.

His only admitted downside to that upbringing? "Sometimes I'll forget to lock my house now."

His message to the next generation of Bombers is straightforward: don't give up, shoot your shot, and see where things lead. Apply for the job even if it feels too big. Make the connections. Let God's plan unfold.

And if it doesn't work the way you thought?

Macomb will always welcome you back.