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Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Raleigh, N.C.
Head athletic trainer, Carolina Hurricanes Hockey Club
In 2012, my then-girlfriend, now my wife, Shelley, and I were visiting multiple churches in the Raleigh area. We came from different church backgrounds but had similar wants in a church. After our first visit to Good Shepherd, we both were drawn to it and knew we wanted to connect more.
We are involved in many ways in and around Good Shepherd. We love the life-changing service theme that the church actively lives out. We enjoy volunteering for Family Promise, a charity for at-risk and homeless families, and Coffeehouse, a regularly offered evening of entertainment for all ages with an emphasis on adults with developmental delays. Our children are active in youth and cross-generational ministries as well as acolytes, and Shelley enjoys helping as a worship leader.
It’s important to our family to find ways to connect with the gospel message. Whether that’s hearing it preached from a pulpit—Good Shepherd has great sermons—or living it out through Jesus’ call to love one another in the ministries they have available, there’s something for everyone. Good Shepherd is a place of love and connection.
I entered college with an undecided major designation, and part of the requirement for that at Penn State [University in State College, Pa.] was that I attended regular sessions with an adviser and walked through a journey to decide what path was best for me. Everything pointed toward my desire to help others in a health care setting and my love for sports. I was entered into an “Intro to Athletic Training” course, and the rest is history.
A typical day for me as head athletic trainer depends on the time of year and what’s going on. There’s the off-season, which is more administrative in nature. There’s training camp, which is our longest days, with multiple groups practicing and intense training sessions. There are practice days. And then there are my favorite—game days.
Game day involves a morning skate, before which we complete the players’ rehabilitation and therapy to prepare them for the day. Then, after they attend some meetings, we tape and brace them and make final preparations before they skate again. After the skate, we complete any postpractice treatments they need. Returning in the afternoon for the game, we go through a similar process to the morning, with the focus, obviously, being on preparing them to play.
During the game, I stand on the bench and triage any injuries that may occur. I prefer to be the guy behind the guy, who no one sees or recognizes, but occasionally I have to run onto the ice to assist an injured player, and I get to do my job very publicly. After the game, we finish up dealing with any new injuries and make a plan for the next day.
My job includes a lot of different aspects, from designing injury prevention strategies to evaluating musculoskeletal injuries and rehabilitation of injuries. I work very closely with our team physicians to coordinate all aspects of our players’ medical care, from preparticipation medical exams to MD appointments to MRIs and advanced imaging. On the other end, I work with our strength and conditioning coach and team coaches as players return from injury to progress them [so they can] safely play.
I like the camaraderie of being a part of a team working toward our goals. Whether it’s our specific sports medicine team working to return a player safely from injury or our whole Hurricanes team working toward winning the Stanley Cup, we’re all pulling on the same rope and working together. It is really rewarding to see an athlete go from some of their lowest moments, when they’re struggling with the reality of injury and missing the game they love, to helping them through it, seeing them return to play and have success.
Whether it’s our sports medicine team working to return a player safely from injury or our whole Hurricanes team working toward winning the Stanley Cup, we’re all working together.
I feel a calling to health care, and athletic training is a profession known for its dedication and care. I love the quote “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” I know if you polled my athletes, they’d tell you I’m one of the first people—if not the first person—they call when an emergency hits. I’ve taken calls in the middle of the night, including calls about family members who are sick or hurt, and I always pick up and get them the care they need.
I’ve enjoyed nearly everywhere I’ve been professionally. I’ve had the pleasure of working with UNC-Chapel Hill’s baseball team that went to two College World Series, the Seattle Seahawks, the Philadelphia Eagles and now the Hurricanes. Making the playoffs and chasing a Stanley Cup with the Hurricanes are some of my best memories. The joy of winning a Game 7 or a playoff series is hard to describe. The satisfaction of seeing a player return from a major injury, knowing that we played a part in their return, [is a] special, private moment for me.
I don’t get much free time, but when I do, I spend it with my family. I have a beautiful, loving wife who is incredibly supportive of my crazy schedule and travel, and I have two awesome kids, Sunny (9) and Carter (7), who I just adore. In sports, music, plays or just hanging around, I treasure my time with them. And if there’s any time left, I like to hit a small white ball around a large green field into 18 strategically placed holes.
I pray for my family. I pray that I can live out Jesus’ example of love. In worship, I often hear a variation of prayers for things to be acceptable in God’s sight. So I regularly pray, “I may not know what I’m doing, but I’m trying my best,” and I know that’s acceptable in God’s sight.
Grace, to me, means praying, “I’m doing my best down here, God, and I’m confident that’s acceptable to you. Guide me to be better each day.” But I rest assured that God unconditionally loves me, no matter my faults.
I’m a Lutheran because of grace. I trust in God’s mercy, grace and love wholeheartedly.
If you’d like to nominate someone for “I’m a Lutheran,” email livinglutheran@elca.org.
