Unknown Speaker 0:00
This is Bill Beekman, Vice President, Director of Athletics at Michigan State University. We're joined today by Dr. Sally Nogle, our head athletic trainer. Thanks for joining us, Sally. Thank you for having me as the head athletic trainer, you've been in this in this role for some time, I won't say exactly how long but what first walk us through what what is what is a day in the life of an athletic trainer? What What kinds of things go on and everybody sees the the support that you provide on the football field and other athletic trainers provide during competition but what what is what is a day in your life look like?

Unknown Speaker 0:42
I'm gonna give you a day my life pre COVID. Okay, sounds good. Okay, um, well, that's a phrase we arrived here in the morning before the athletes usually like go to workout, go to lift weights, go to their workouts, practices, whatever. And we help get them ready for that. And we might stretch somebody we might take somebody might put a splint on a brace on whatever they need, before they go work out, to do their lifting their conditioning or some sports practice in the mornings before their sport. And so you get into here and you do that type of thing. First off, and then there's administrative work at that point in time to like, give me the injury report to a coach. So then you go over the injury report with a coach. So you tell who's limited today, who can do everything who might not be able to do a certain drill, who's sick, whatever it is, you give the report to a coach. So we create that report. And then we show it to the coaches and talk about the athletes what they can and can't do, then treatment start, continue on to the whole morning. So you're doing rehabilitation all morning long for all the injuries that have happened. So you may use modalities like the ultrasound, electrical stem machines, he called. And then we do hands on rehab. So you might be doing joint mobilizations or PMF. Or whatever the techniques are, to help that person's injured body part get well as fast as possible, then we get to the afternoon by for football, and we do a lot of taping. So we do a lot of taping for football because all their ankles will be taped. Some sports might just do more rehab at that point in time, some more stretching, some might do more hands on, just depends, then the practice comes in. So we go out to practice and recover the practice and we watch them work out and then watch the injured people how they're performing, are they getting better or worse, what's happening there and then take care of any new injuries, evaluate any new injuries that happen to practice, after practice, look at other injuries that happened that maybe they didn't stop and ask us for during practice. We put ice bags on re evaluate the injuries that were there to see if they are smaller not and then start the process all over. That's a long day.

Unknown Speaker 2:46
It seems like one of the one of the things that's changed a lot over the years is the the the approach to recovery, how you can get a student athletes body sort of repaired and back to normal faster. What kinds of things do you commonly do to to work on that what you mentioned ice and one of the things I always see after football practice are the the cold pools that the guys go in, which seems absolutely horrific to me. But, but but they jump in those things? Like it's a good thing.

Unknown Speaker 3:32
Yes, they like the cold tubs. And yeah, they get in there, some guys will get in there, you know, to their ankles, some will go to nice, some will go all the way, you know, to their chest tie to ever I don't know how they do it either. Personally, I don't think I would do it. But we use a lot of hotels, we use compression too. We use rolling out, you know going out. It's a big thing nowadays. We talked a lot about hydration and sleep and nutrition because that's the best way to recover, to be honest to get your sleep. We like these athletes to get eight or nine hours. It doesn't happen very often. But we do like them to get here and I was asleep. That's what they needed that age and for the body to recover faster and better. We talked about hydration because if you're hydrated you recover faster, and then nutrition can help you with recovery. Sorry, our dietitians helped athletes know what to take and what when to take it and that helps them recover awesome. So we've seen compression units rolling out I stubs, lifestyle, I'll call it that helps the athletes recover faster.

Unknown Speaker 4:23
With all of the fancy technology and tools and other things available to us. It sort of comes down to kind of what your mom told you when you were in high school, get a good night's rest, eat healthy and it Take care of yourself and those are the biggest keys towards wellness for for people or for for our student athletes.

Unknown Speaker 4:47
Yep we also listened to your mom's I'll say that for sure. It is through this through some of this stuff is been around for years. We know it does good for a body we know that you know he learned better when you sleep. We know that you get the way the brain works when you sleep it you can all the things that you learned in the day or are solidified better into your long term memory. You know, we know that science, but these young people want to quick fix some other way. And it really isn't there, you really need to do the things you have to do. But you're right. The other stuff we do, you know, the science shows that the basics are still there and have been for years, as I said, You've been doing this for a while, what has changed over the years? What?

Unknown Speaker 5:22
What did you do in in the decades past that either you scratch your head and think, oh, my goodness, I couldn't? I can't believe we did that back then. Or, or what do we do now that that might have seemed unimaginable 20 years ago? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 5:39
yeah. When I first started, some of the things are crazy. You think about the surgeries, if someone had like a meniscus tear the knee, their season was done, you had to open them up and the season was over. And people had tricked knees, relax, really probably people that didn't have ACLs, to be honest, we call it a technique that's it shifted on him or whatever. Whereas now you have arthroscopy. And now you can fix the ACL on the PCL and our ligament in the knee, you know, we never fixed before now we can fix those doctors can fix those. I think, you know, the biggest thing is these athletes are going out year round. Whereas I don't think you know, when I first started that they always had a lot more of a offseason. And so trying to help them through that year round athletics and making sure they do get some rest and recovery in their away from their sport away from the repetitiveness of it is something we deal with now. And then we didn't deal with 25 years ago, concussions obviously have changed immensely. You know, we did what we thought was best at the time, there was concussion protocols that we followed, and we followed him and believed in him, because that's what we were told by the neurosurgeons in the country or whatever. And in the end, obviously, it wasn't the right advice. And so now we're, you know, we've changed what we do, they don't go back into a game again, if they've had a concussion, whereas before they cleared up in 15 minutes, you could put them back in, we would never do that. Now we think that'd be terrible. But back then that was the norm, and you were following what was best practices at that point in time. So that part's changed a lot. I think some of our modalities that we have now to treat injuries have improved, there's a lot more knowledge, you know, the research that's been done in athletic training is improved a lot in sports medicine improved a lot. So we now know the techniques that will help us get the athlete back, but you know, faster, or the surgery, that's better to do than we did before. So, you know, we've had a lot of advances in 25 years.

Unknown Speaker 7:16
So we we try hard to make sure that we have athletic training services available to all of our student athletes across all 25 sports, but you know, what are the differences, obviously, a football player has different issues, perhaps then, than a rower where your sport really is a a very same sort of singular repetitive motion, as compared to, you know, a wrestler, who's, you know, he just has has a different set of issues. What are the? Are our athletic trainers interchangeable? Or do they tend to focus on a particular sport that's of interest? Or, you know, and and how do we treat those sports differently.

Unknown Speaker 8:05
As athletic trainers, you can you can treat, I could work, I think any sport I came about, I could work it and you learn it quickly what the nuances are of it. But since we're here for healthcare, we, you know, you learn the injuries and illnesses and things that you have to treat, you do get like football has more collision type injuries, obviously rolling, you're to look more at backs, maybe in wrist. So you have people that specialize in track and field that they you know, the maybe the cross country runners that learn more about the gait cycle and more about repetitive running. So some people do you specialize in, you know, just like and what you like, you know, so I like the context, sport and acute injuries, versus the overuse injuries, that's you know, something I like some people like overuse injuries better. So send me like swimming with shoulder injuries more. So you know, you kind of get that way. But as athletic trainer with our skill set that we have to be licensed and certified, we technically could switch sports in a minute and still be able to work it You wouldn't know the nuances of it, like a gymnast has a special grip, they were whatever, you wouldn't know that until you work it, but you can learn it. So I feel like as athletic trainers, you could switch sports, you know, some people the high school coverall sports, obviously. But I do think that people do get a sport, they kind of love sometimes and you start getting into that and you get that niche and you get very specialized, but it doesn't mean you can't go cover something else like this we got covered rowing and field hockey and football. So you can cover it.

Unknown Speaker 9:20
So, over the years, is it your your sense that you know so take cross country as as one example, as the technology of footwear has evolved? As the as as running shoes have evolved over the years? Does that does that make your job easier? Or or harder or does it not make any difference?

Unknown Speaker 9:48
Yeah, I would say as technology evolves, it helps us out. So the fact that like the Nike shoes they put time into doing their technology put time into researching the injuries and And how they work for sports, you know, in some athletes way a lot more than others and some have wider feet than others. And the fact that they take that into account is huge for the athletes and huge trusses for injuries. But if you have too wide a foot on us on a narrow shoe is hanging over, you're more susceptible to some foot injuries, you know, for runner doesn't have good arch support, and they have a high arch foot, they may have more injury. So the fact that the shoe companies have tried to make some some strides in that pun intended, I think it's a, you know, it's it's been good, it's been very valuable to us in the field,

Unknown Speaker 10:30
the job of an athletic trainer is pretty challenging, on a normal day, but in the environment that we've been in now for almost a year with the pandemic. I know that's that's tremendously changed the the work that you all do, on the front end in terms of working with our student athletes on our testing protocols, and so on, how is that impacted, impacted our athletic training team,

Unknown Speaker 11:03
it's impacted us a lot significantly, because we have to help with the testing to help set up the testing that we're doing. Getting the athletes to the testing depend on if it's antigen or PCR testing, and then we deal with the positives, then we have to determine, you know, who's in isolation, and we help the university position Dr. Wiseman, we help the local health department and try to contact Tracy. And so because we don't want you know, they have a lot going on. And so if we can help them and contact trace before they get to them and already have people in quarantine, that helps a lot and also keeps us from spreading the virus. So we're really trying to do our part and prevent the COVID from spreading, obviously hoping that they don't get in the first place. But if our athletes do, we want to help prevent them from spreading that virus to other people, since we are in close contact in sport, and try and do our best there. So it's been a lot of hours testing following up that we worked in pods for a while. So that spread out the practices to you know, you can't just have one team practice, you may have had three or four practices in a day or 12 practices a day for football in the summer to get those covered.

Unknown Speaker 12:09
So what caught what caused you to to go into this field? What caused you to to be interested in being an athletic trainer?

Unknown Speaker 12:17
Well, when I went to college, I didn't even know about athletic training, because it was a while ago, but I met athletes training while I was in college, and did I want to do something healthcare, I knew I wanted to something healthcare. And so once I found that out, and I love sports, kind of the typical response that athletic trainers, we love sports, we love health care, and it combines the two of them. So you know, that gave me my start there. I went to San Diego State and the head athletic trainer, there was a brilliant man. And so I was very fortunate because I could have been a school that didn't have a good athletic trainer, and I would have not even known anything what I should do or not know. And he he taught me very well. And so I was very fortunate that happened to fall into that just

Unknown Speaker 12:55
by chance. And so from sunny San Diego, what brought you to East Lansing

Unknown Speaker 12:59
actually the job at Michigan State there they had back in the day they had a hotline you call to find out what jobs are open in the country. And this job was opened and so I sent my resume in there I had to go to the library and type up the resume and I did and send it in and and they called me I was very surprised. So then yeah, I interviewed on such shock that I got the job to be honest. And I told my husband I'd come out here and we could live here for a couple years and we'll go back to California and we never did

Unknown Speaker 13:26
so you've you've been our not only our head athletic trainer, but the the head athletic trainer for football. And so you've had the opportunity to work with a whole host of coaches over the years to be in the in the locker room after lots of wins and and and unfortunately a number of losses as well. What did you have a favorite moment or a favorite win from your your many years on the sidelines?

Unknown Speaker 13:57
I would say so my favorite wins would be the Rose Bowl wins. And then the Cotton Bowl win was pretty special. First bowl game when was with Coach D that was pretty special. There's a lot of you know, some last minute or last minute ones always exciting. I always say it's gonna be really fun winner big bummer loss. I think that their moment would be at Campbell. You know, he broke his neck and we're in Oregon. And then a year later, whatever came back and we played them here and he picked up a fumble and ran it back for a touchdown. And when I that was just like wow, because I never thought I'd make it back to playing so I'm like one of my memories that was really special.

Unknown Speaker 14:28
Oh, cheering alone setback. They'll hand dog and Julian Peterson is picked up by Campbell's in midfield and Campbell is gonna fly in for a touchdown for those sparks could not happen. Better guy.

Unknown Speaker 14:50
Thank you Scott more audio courtesy of the Spartan Sports Network. And you all as athletic trainers are really on the front line of those recoveries. Working with those student athletes every day and, and helping them get better and stronger, and you want to recover so that they can compete again.

Unknown Speaker 15:09
Yeah, that's why our jobs are great. We get to see them, you know, you get the highs and the lows as they go through the rehab process. And then to see them compete with what their ultimate goal was and do well, it's it's it's really exciting. Makes it all worse than all that work for that they had just put the worksheet we just got to work with them. But yeah, it's, it's worth it.

Unknown Speaker 15:27
Are there technologies that have that have changed over the years? Are there pieces of equipment that make your job easier or solve problems that maybe seemed unsolvable 20 years ago,

Unknown Speaker 15:41
there are there are definitely more modalities like lasers and things that we did not have before. You know, some things were in fashion back, you know, diathermy are more popular, they're kind of making a comeback. But I really believe in the exercise portion of it all. I believe in the hands on that, you know, Michigan State has the aspect medical school, Dr. Green Man, Dr. braam, and those who are the leaders in that field of muscle energy for helping the body get realigned and all that they taught us that they taught us how to do all those techniques. And so I think Reliant athlete are getting things moving, that weren't moving, that isn't moving well like a joint is it moving well, or lack of range of motion or whatever, you do that and then you get the athlete doing exercises, that gets the athlete back faster than anything we can. We can use all the machines and modalities, but we have to convince them that you can play there and have modalities on you. But you'll heal a lot faster if we get you moving and get you up and doing the exercises because that's what heals the body. Very good. Well,

Unknown Speaker 16:35
we've really enjoyed learning about athletic training, athletic training at Michigan State, the evolution of the field and how extraordinarily valuable it is for our student athletes here at Michigan State. So, Sally, I can't thank you enough for joining us on the program today. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai