Driving Force: Former GLIAC Medalist Finds Faith, Academic Rigor at Hillsdale

Written by Doug Goodnough

Golf is what brought Joel Pietila, ’19, to Hillsdale College, but the academic experience is what kept him there. The former men’s golfer is now a financial planner for the Bahnsen Group in the Phoenix, Arizona, area. He said his path to Hillsdale started on the golf course.

“I didn’t even know Hillsdale existed until I was playing in a summer tournament with Joe Torres,” Pietila said of his eventual Hillsdale teammate and 2018 classmate. “We were paired up in the same group, and (Hillsdale coach) Mike Harner was watching Joe. But my mom struck up a conversation with Mike, and I guess I played well enough that he was interested in having me come and visit.”

Both Torres and Pietila eventually signed with Hillsdale and helped the Chargers re-establish the program as a varsity sport.

Pietila was a top performer for the Chargers, winning medalist honors as a sophomore at the last Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference meet before Hillsdale entered the Great Midwest Athletic Conference in 2017-18.

However, about a month before his championship effort, Pietila was struggling with his game.

“I completely lost my swing,” said Pietila, suffering from the unofficial golf condition called the “shanks.” “By God’s grace and by good coaching and practice, I was able to figure some things out. I played some good golf at the right time and kept my head together.”

He earned a spot on the tournament roster and won the individual title at The Virtues Golf Course in the Columbus, Ohio, area. As a junior, he led the team with around a 72 average for 18 holes. However, he decided to leave the golf team after the fall season to focus on academics.

“I was able to enjoy a couple of semesters of just being a student on campus,” Pietila said of the decision. “I loved that experience just as much as I loved my opportunity to play golf. I’m really grateful I had a few semesters of just being a student at Hillsdale because of the high level of academics that you get to dive into. It’s hard to do that when you’re a student-athlete because there’s so much that you’re thinking about and juggling.”

An applied mathematics and religion double major, he said Hillsdale sparked not only his love of learning, but also his faith. He said Professor Don Westblade’s religion courses as well as Dr. Miles Smith in the History Department were two professors who made an impact.

“Those courses were the first courses I had to take where I was really forced to think for myself about ideas, as opposed to just hearing what the professor or teacher thought and regurgitating what they said,” said Pietila, who is originally from Rockford, Michigan. “And I grew a lot in my faith as a result, because I was confronted with different ideas and needing to reason through why I believe what I believe.”

He met his wife, Alexis (Pierce), ’19, while a student at Hillsdale, and they were married before their senior years. Right after graduation, Pietila worked for the College’s Admissions Office as a counselor in the western U.S. Now settled in Gilbert, Arizona, for the past five-plus years, the couple is raising a 15-month-old daughter.

“I’m working as a financial planner and really involved in our church and just loving being out in the sunshine,” he said.

They both have strong connections to the College. Alexis’ brother, Andrew Pierce, ’20, works in the President’s Office as a research assistant, while her sister, Chloe Pierce, ’26, is a member of the Chargers volleyball team.

Pietila said he still keeps tabs on the Chargers golf program.

“I check every tournament to see how the boys are doing,” Pietila said. “The program is in good hands. It sounds like the level of quality that is being put into some of the new facilities is going to be pretty special.”

Doug Goodnough, ’90, is Hillsdale’s senior director of Alumni Marketing. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni in new and wonderful ways.

Published in January 2025