Driven: HTHS junior’s journey to be Navy pilot

How, in a store with walls covered in crimson merchandise, could an August conversation be about anything other than the upcoming University of Alabama football season?

How, as a man perused through the vintage logo hats — the logo with the elephant stepping through a block A and “Crimson Tide” printed at the bottom, the only logo that Alabama should print on shirts and hats — could a conversation about required reading for AP English happen?

Well, that man was wearing a library-themed black shirt. The lone Bama Fever-Tiger Pride employee, barely 16 years old, approached him and asked, “So, do you like to read?”

The conversation was off and running quicker than a Crimson Tide wide receiver.

Ethan Sutherland is that 16-year-old, a Hewitt-Trussville High School junior who had only been working at the store for a few weeks. He said he was re-reading “The Sun Does Shine” by Anthony Ray Hinton as a refresher for his AP English class, and another book about confidence in public speaking to remind himself that he’s capable. He plans to read “Life Force” by Tony Robbins next.

Sutherland paces himself when reading so that he doesn’t burn out. His love for reading kickstarted almost two years ago when he read “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter, which stresses the importance of financial literacy, independence and building wealth.

“I couldn’t stop,” Sutherland said.

Spend 10 minutes in the afternoon among the Tide and Tigers jerseys when Sutherland is behind the register, and a one-word description of him will be obvious – driven.

“Definitely driven,” Sutherland said. “It hasn’t always been like that, though.”

If he wasn’t achieving positive results right away on the football field or baseball diamond, he took time off. He didn’t try hard in school. He’s 16.

Sutherland said it took him a long time to figure out who he is, where he wants to go in life. He was tired of blaming coaches, teachers, others.

“I stopped making excuses, and I started working on it,” Sutherland said.

He hasn’t stopped working on it since the second semester of his freshman year. Sutherland has big plans for his career, and his drive is keeping him on the straight and narrow. He wants to be a Navy pilot, to fly the F-18 fighter jets. The dream traces back to watching “Top Gun” as a 6-year-old, and he’s clear that this desire began with the 1986 classic, not the 2022 follow-up that has stowed away more money than Fort Knox. Sutherland thought he wanted to fly cargo planes around the world, but a year ago he decided, once and for all, the F-18s were for him.

“It’s just always been appealing to me,” he said. “I’d rather work for not much money but enjoy what I do versus make a lot of money and hate what I do.”

He has backup plans of being an entrepreneur and working as an exotic car salesman. The way he talks about pursuing the Navy, though, it’s hard to see Sutherland writing up the paperwork for a Lamborghini. On where he sees himself 10 years from now — that obvious yet ambiguous question asked in thousands of corporate offices nationwide — Sutherland was clear.

“I’m going to say I’m going to be an F-18 pilot in the Navy,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll be married. I would say hopefully so. There’s no telling what state, city or country I’ll be in, depending on where I’m deployed, but I know I’m going to be a pilot. I know I’m going to be doing what I love and what I enjoy.”

Sutherland’s dad, Chad Sutherland, has seen that independent thought and nonconformity in his son.

“He’s got his head on right, he knows which direction he wants to go in life,” he said. “He works very hard. I can’t be anything but super proud of the way he’s turned out and the plans he has.”

Sutherland said to become a Navy pilot, he must have a four-year college degree. He is being tutored to take the ACT in April and hopes to earn an ROTC scholarship. He wants to go through basic training during his senior year of high school and learn how to fly during college. After college, he plans to be in the air.

“He has always wanted to fight for our country, and he’s always wanted to fly planes,” said his mom, Jessica Self Sutherland. “What better way to do it than to fly for the Navy?”

Sutherland knows his dream requires time and effort. He wakes up at 4:45 a.m. each weekday to get to the gym by 5 a.m., works out, showers in cold water and heads to school. After school, he goes to work. He has been prepping meals — chicken and rice and jambalaya are the recent dishes — to eat five times per day.

“It’s all routine,” he said. “If I get out of routine, I’m out of whack. I try to keep myself to a high standard and stay in routine.”

To maintain any routine, instant gratification must be cast aside. Sutherland recently read a piercing quote about people giving up what they want most to get what they want now.

“I’m going to try not to do that,” he said.

Wherever this dream takes Sutherland, his dad believes it’ll make him a superb motivational speaker someday. He was reading a book about it, after all.

“I recently had a thought that I want someone to look at me one day and say, ‘I’m proud of what he’s accomplished, and I want to be like him. I want to have that drive for success, I want to have that desire to be really good at one thing or another,’” Sutherland said. “I want to have people look at me and say, ‘How did you come to this level in your life where you’ve achieved so much?’ I think that sounds kind of selfish, and I get that, but that’s something I’ve just been striving for. I want the ability to say I’ve achieved something I’ve always wanted to do. I want to be able to say I’ve done this. I set out to do this, I’ve done it and I’ve conquered it.”