First off, can you tell me where you are now career-wise?
I’m currently the Associate Athletic Trainer at Colorado working for Coach Prime. There have been a lot of changes here – a lot of turnover so we have been busy! We now have less than 10 scholarship athletes from the previous coach so we are getting to know our players.
I left the Steelers in 2011 – we were effectively on strike then so I went to work at Oregon State to be their head athletic trainer. The position changed there so I went to San Jose State to work with the men’s basketball team in 2018.
What did you do afterwards?
I found that I missed football. I took a position at Towson State – I worked with their football team for two years. Then the older XFL had started up so I took a job with the L.A. team, but lost the job when the XFL went out of business. I took a job then with Loyola, working with the women’s soccer team. It was a very different experience. It was a smaller school and a much different type of student to work with. But again I missed football so that’s when I applied and got the job here at Colorado.
Why the love of football?
A lot of sports medicine focuses on prevention and working on things like helping people fatigue less. It may sound horrible but I think I’m good at dealing with more of the contact-type of injuries and like that work. Football has more contact and more injuries due to contact. I enjoy handling those types of injuries. I get to see process and the final result of them going back to playing again. I enjoy that part of it and I enjoy helping people compete.
It’s also a much larger group of players so you need a team of medical staff as well, and I enjoy working with other colleagues and getting their opinions on things. I like that aspect as well – that collaboration.
Why did you decide to intern with the Steelers?
I didn’t watch the NFL – I didn’t have a favorite team. I met John Norwig at a conference and at the time the Steelers were the only team willing to consider a female Summer intern for their training staff. John told me to send my resume in – that he couldn’t promise anything but if an opening came up you never knew. I also had a friend from Japan who worked with John and the team as a translator when they went to Japan, and that helped too.
Were you aware when you were hired that you were making such an impact as the first full-time female trainer in the NFL?
I was not fully aware of how big of a deal it was. I was aware I was the first female trainer in the NFL but not that it was a big deal. I learned later when I spoke to colleagues and told them about the offer. They asked if I meant the University of Pittsburgh. When I said the Steelers there was this moment of silence. They were confused.
I was told later that some of the other NFL trainers weren’t happy about it but I didn’t know that at the time.
What obstacles if any did that create for you?
It’s just like any medical profession where there are regular healthcare protocols. If it means you are supposed to go into the locker room you go in. I never felt like I couldn’t go in and I don’t think the athletes did either. As long as I carried myself like a professional it should not be a big deal.
I was fortunate to have John and Ryan Grove there – they were good to me. Mr. Rooney was very nice too. He just treated us all the same – no one was any different. We didn’t have any other female staff when we went on the road, so Ryan used to joke with me that I got my own room while he had to share one.
Are you happy with the progress made by women in your profession now?
It’s amazing to see the rules driving things now. When I am asked to review resumes for scholarship applicants I wonder what a minority is now. It’s weird that a woman is a minority – I always saw minority as race or ethnicity. But maybe I’m naive – the fact we are still talking about it means we aren’t there yet.
When I went to our professional association meetings most used to be men in suits and ties. I felt weird then, but now I’m seeing females everywhere. There were no female full-time trainers in the NFL during my time with the Steelers, but now every team except two or three has a female trainer on staff.
Who are some of the people that were mentors of yours over your career?
In all the places I worked I had mentors. The physicians, trainers, equipment managers – all of those people who worked behind the scenes and weren’t interested in the spotlight – those were my mentors.
John was one of them – Jim Wallace at Poland State too. Jim talked to me about work-life balance – he always wanted me to be able to work and get married and have kids.
John was just so nice – he saw the good in everybody – he never had anything bad to say about anybody, even if they were rude to him. I remember the first day there – I didn’t have a car so he drove me to the facility. When he was parking his car he saw a family of ducks and one of them fell down a storm drain. He called animal control even though it was a busy day, to save the duck. An hour later they came. I told him I couldn’t believe he did that, and he said that calling from the Steelers facility carried extra importance to them.
What did Pittsburgh do in its training regimen that, looking back over your career, was unique or different?
They were the only professional team I worked with at the time – I thought how they did things was how everyone did them. But that wasn’t true. The staff all worked well together – no one wanted their name in the newspaper – no one wanted to say they saved Ben Roethlisberger’s career. John and Dr. Bradley would argue once a year – we’d laugh at that – it happened once every year.
The team was always transparent with its players about medical issues. They always shared reports even if the players didn’t read them. That was not always the case elsewhere. I didn’t realize how different it was until I left.
How hard is it to work with players now that so much happens away from the team? How do you work with them?
It’s more than ever – even in college. As long as we know what they are doing and they are being honest with us and not harming themselves, we have to think of it as a group approach. It’s harder for a strength coach if players are working out in different programs than doing what they were teaching. But we have to go with the flow. Now it’s all more specialized and individualized anyway and we all use data more to observe the changes to ensure its all going ok.
How do you use that data?
We use things like GPS, force plate measures – things like that. More and more science and data help us understand how players are doing. But, we still have to see them move and know who they are.
A lot like scouting?
Yes. It’s not just about the data and numbers. We have to see how they do what they do and know them individually to really assess them.
Any fun or memorable experiences stand out to you from your time in Pittsburgh?
My first time in Latrobe – I had never been to Pennsylvania before. I had no idea how long it took to get from the airport to Latrobe. I was picked up at the gate – they could do that then! When we drove to camp I saw the beautiful cathedral and campus. John told me then that the ankles of the players there were the same as the ankles I worked with in college. Jerome Bettis’ ankles were the same as any other ankles. I think that was the first advice he gave me.
I remember the training machines then were by the washer and dryers. They had padlocks on the medicine cabinets – they didn’t have secure ways to store medicine then. When I got there I saw these sporty cars – I thought these were a different level of people – ones with wealth. But when I worked with the athletes I realized they were the same as any others I’ve worked with – the same as other places I’ve been. The people are all the same – just the outcomes are different. They play in much bigger crowds and are much bigger athletes. But superstar or Super Bowl, to me it didn’t matter much. I’m what you can say is a flat person. I don’t get too excited.
Like Cowher said “Don’t get too high with the highs, too low with the lows…”
Yes – Coach Tomlin said “The standard is the standard”. Those long-term relationships with the team that John and the coaches and owners had – years with the team – someone told me those are like unicorns. I was lucky to be a part of it for 10 years.
