Inside athletic training: Meet MSUB’s miracle workers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Evan O’Kelly Director of Communications O: (406) 657-2130 E: evan.okelly@msubillings.edu Thursday, February 4, 2016 Inside athletic training: Meet MSUB’s miracle workers

Working hard every day behind the scenes to ensure MSUB’s student-athletes are primed for competition are athletic trainers Tom Ebel, Lindsay Sullivan, and Patrick Behre.

MSUB SPORTS – Every athletic team at Montana State University Billings – and for that matter just about every college sports team in the country – has members who don’t contribute a single statistic or see a minute of action on the field during the course of a season.

These members don’t have jersey numbers, batting gloves, or soft-ground cleats for when pitches in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference become almost too muddy to navigate.

They don’t have a chance to win an end-of-the-year award or advance to the postseason if they perform well enough.

They don’t have a won-lost record.

Yet they are at every practice, game, and oftentimes road trip of the season. Their daily duties begin well before the ball is hoisted at center court and carry on well after the final kill is slammed down into the hardwood.

They serve as part-time therapist, and whether they are qualified or not, hearing the problems, struggles, and uncertainties of young, exceptionally-talented adults may as well be stitched into their job descriptions.

In some ways, the referee’s signal to kick off with her whistle simultaneously calls for what can be the calmest part of the day. For these team members, the less action during the game, the better for everyone involved.

Sometimes however, the heat of competition is when they are called upon to perform at their finest. To be the first on the scene when a player whom they have helped develop is suddenly helpless and in need of immediate support. To be there with ability and knowledge that no one else in a jam-packed gym has, and that will be counted on in the most crucial moments directly after an injury.

Sometimes, the life of an athletic trainer is pure chaos.

HANG LOOSE, MAN Walk into MSUB’s athletic training center on a Friday afternoon and chances are you won’t recognize Tom Ebel as the head athletic trainer. He’ll be sporting the latest in what seems to be an endless supply of Hawaiian shirts, and throw up the ‘hang-loose’ sign upon acknowledging your presence.

Whether it’s Hawaiian Shirt Friday or Gameday Saturday, Ebel is tasked with captaining MSUB’s athletic training program, now in his fifth year in charge of sports medicine for the Yellowjackets along with assistant athletic trainer Lindsay Sullivan and graduate assistant athletic trainer Patrick Behre. Don’t be duped by his tendency to put his trademark dance moves on display on the blue, gold, and white-checked floor; when it comes down to business Ebel is knowledgeable and efficient beyond most.

A man who has traveled to all 50 United States, Ebel completed his master’s degree in 2004 from Eastern New Mexico University after graduating from Concordia University Nebraska in his hometown of Seward with a stop in Australia along the way.

His initial interest in athletic training – and perhaps beginning of his tropical tshirt collection – was spurned while attending Campbell High School in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. “I was studying computers, and the second or third week of 2-adays in football I broke my leg,” Ebel remembered. “I was unable to get to my computer class after that. I began chatting with my physical therapist and she is the one who got me thinking about something like athletic training or physical therapy as a career.”

Ebel accompanies MSUB men’s soccer star Ricardo Palomino off the pitch in a home game last fall.

Though Concordia didn’t have an athletic trainer on staff by the time Ebel was enrolled in classes, he learned how to tape ankles and other fundamental skills from one of the school’s equipment managers. Eventually passing his certification exam at the University of Nebraska in 1996, Ebel was thrown into the mix as the head athletic trainer at his alma mater in Seward. “Was I in over my head? Yes, absolutely,” Ebel said. “We had 14 major knee injuries in my first year.”

Ebel recalls guidance and support he received from physical therapists in town as helping him grow, and insisted that he never second-guessed himself during his six-plus years in charge. “I was really in-tune to learning and getting better as an athletic trainer,” Ebel said. “When you’re in over your head, you learn to catch up, and I believe that I rehab an ACL really well now because of that first year. Our physician was patient with me and did a lot of teaching.”

IT’S ALL IN THE KIT As Ebel shifted his career and took charge at Clovis High School in New Mexico, Sullivan finished up her undergraduate requirements as a student at MSU Billings. Though the option to sit for the athletic training certification was available to her directly after earning her bachelor’s degree, the Belgrade, Mont., native chose to head east to Brookings, S.D., and tackle a master’s degree at South Dakota State University.

After Ebel was hired at MSUB to start the 2011-12 year, the stars aligned for Sullivan as she picked up her certificate and master’s degree, and the assistant athletic trainer job for the Yellowjackets opened all at once in the spring of 2012. “I was more excited to apply for this job than I was for any others,” Sullivan remembered. “Knowing the university and the type of people who are here gave me a great sense of camaraderie.”

Just as Ebel had been thrown into the first with his first head athletic training job at Concordia, Sullivan was tested within her first two weeks on the clock at MSUB. With fall sports underway and Ebel and MSUB’s graduate assistant on the road with fall sports teams, Sullivan was the only certified athletic trainer on campus when disaster struck during a fall softball tournament.

“I got a call saying that one of the players from Great Falls ran into the outfield fence and may have broken her leg,” Sullivan said. “When I got up there, I got her splinted and tried to calm her down while we waited for the ambulance to arrive.”

Sullivan later received an email from the Great Falls coach thanking her for her expert assistance on the field. The player ended up requiring surgery, and her doctor commented that whatever was done on the field immediately after the injury wound up saving her from significant issues with her leg later on in life.

“That really gave me confidence to know that what I had done was right,” Sullivan said. “As a practicing athletic trainer, I was reacting and trying to treat the injury the right way. As a student, you have someone there telling you how to do it, so just having that initial emergency and handling it well helped reassure me that I was meant to be doing this.”

Though athletic trainers hope they never have to deal with serious injuries, they have to be constantly prepared and ready to react at any moment. In the winter of 2013-14, that moment came not once, but twice for Sullivan. With the Yellowjacket women’s basketball team vying for a GNAC title, junior Annie DePuydt collapsed to the floor in a road game at Central Washington, her ACL giving way and effectively ending her season. Just more than one month later at Western Oregon, Sullivan heard the unmistakable pop again, this time with junior Janiel Olson falling to the floor with less than one second remaining in the game.

Sullivan attending to a runner during the 2014 NCAA West Region Cross Country Championships, hosted by MSU Billings at Amend Park last year.

“When Janiel tore her ACL it was the third one of the year, and I knew what I was in for,” Sullivan said. “It was emotionally overwhelming, and I was probably just as mentally down as the rest of the team was when that happened.”

Sullivan’s job quickly turned from taping ankles and preparing athletes for action, to a long-term, emotionally and physically grueling recovery program for players who had ambitions of returning for their senior seasons. “I had to do a lot of research on rehab and therapeutic exercises for ACLs, and it definitely made me better as an athletic trainer as far as knowledge,” Sullivan said. “It showed me the difficulty athletes face with long-term or season-ending injuries. It takes away the things that have been a mental stress release for them, and being sensitive and supportive towards that was something I learned in that situation.”

DePuydt returned the following season to put a final touch on a stand-out four-year career, and Olson is currently in pursuit of MSUB’s career rebounding record while the ‘Jackets fight for a return to the top of the GNAC this season.

“I have been very impressed with Lindsay’s skills as an athletic trainer,” commented MSUB head women’s basketball coach Kevin Woodin. “She is a good athletic trainer, sports psychologist, and counselor, and she wears a lot of other hats for our team too. After our players leave our program, I can’t WHAT’S IN THE KIT? – Tums, electrolytes, 10 band aids, eight rolls tell you how thankful they are that they’ve had her caring for of tape, a facemask, fruit snacks, tongue depressors, cotton swabs, scissors, and a couple mouth guards for good measure. them over the years.”

Now a seasoned veteran when it comes to handling serious injuries, Sullivan has had her well-maintained kit by her side the entire way. “My scissors and fanny pack were given to me by my program at SDSU and I have kept them ever since,” said Sullivan, now in her fourth year at MSUB. “I am very protective of those scissors.”

THE A(T) TEAM “One thing about Tom – he questions the norms of the profession. There are lots of things athletic trainers do because that’s how it has always been done. Tom is more of an evidence-based guy and provides a different perspective. He has helped me think about things that I never would have thought to question.” – MSUB G.A. Patrick Behre on Tom Ebel.

The newest face within MSUB’s athletic training department, Behre is among the tail end of athletic trainers who became certified before earning a master’s degree. Having spent two year’s post-University of Idaho practicing at Missouri Southern State University, Behre is halfway through his first year at MSUB and has already noticed significant growth within himself through working directly with Yellowjacket teams.

“Tom and Lindsay are a lot of fun to be around,” said Behre, who has ambitions of becoming a head athletic trainer at a university in the future. “I am going to have to know everything that is going on, including the administrative things like insurance. I feel like I’m getting there.”

Quick to joke about the common mispronunciation of his last name (it’s ‘bear’ not ‘beery’) and hometown of Moscow, Idaho (it’s ‘mosco’ not ‘moss-cow’) the appeal of Montana’s terrain and mountainous surroundings helped draw Behre closer to his home state. A novice mountaineer and hockey enthusiast, Behre has naturally fit into his new surroundings.

“I wanted to go back closer to home when I was working in Missouri, and I thought Montana would be cool when I saw this job open up,” Behre said. “I really like being outdoors and being on top of a mountain just gives you this rush.”

Of the six peaks Behre has summited in his 26 years of life, the first was the Warren Peak in Montana’s Beartooth Mountains when he was in high school. Months before assuming his post inside MSUB’s athletic training room, Behre stood atop Mount Rainier, his grandest accomplishment to date.

Behre’s adventurous side and curiosity have added a fresh dynamic to the athletic training team, and entering the program with experience is something that has eased the burden on Ebel and Sullivan. “When Patrick came in we were able to show him how things worked here, but he already had his own style when it came to things like taping and rehab,” Sullivan said. “He had it figured out already and we didn’t really have to coach him on that. He brings a good sense of humor to our athletic training room, and has done an amazing job with women’s soccer this year.”

While Behre has turned to Ebel and Sullivan to broaden his acumen in his desired career field, the two MSUB veterans are in agreement that he has what it takes to become a successful head athletic trainer in the future. “Since Pat had a little bit of experience coming out of school, he has come in with more confidence which has made my job easier,” Ebel said. “I want him to have freedom in the way he learns things, and he is asking lots of good questions about insurance and the things he’ll need to know as a head athletic trainer.”

MSUB graduate assistant athletic trainer Patrick Behre continues to broaden his knowledge of the profession through working on less hands-on aspects like rehab notes and insurance reports.

PUTTING THE ATHLETIC IN TRAINER While MSUB’s athletic training staff is dedicated to the well-being of Yellowjacket athletes, the scope of its work stretches to the furthest corners of the conference. With Ebel’s parents being missionaries, his childhood was filled with traveling throughout the U.S. and touching down in almost every state.

One state had eluded Ebel throughout his journey across the U.S. however, and it was the opportunity through his job at MSUB that finally brought him to Alaska during last year’s men’s basketball season. “Tom usually wants to go on our trips, and we love having him,” said MSUB men’s basketball head coach Jamie Stevens. “Last year we had a seat open on our trip to Alaska, and Tom always said it was a trip he wanted to go on since he had never been there.”

While Ebel was able to make the journey to the Final Frontier and complete his nation-wide trek, it is not necessarily a given that every team will travel with an athletic trainer on every trip. In this sense, communication and collaboration among colleagues across the GNAC becomes a crucial part of MSUB’s athletic trainers’ jobs.

Beyond caring for athletes physically and in the moment of competition, athletic trainers are tasked with maintaining paperwork on every athlete in their program, recording rehabilitation notes, and working with insurance companies.

When teams are on the road and will require assistance from the host school’s athletic trainer, it is crucial that Ebel, Sullivan, or Behre contact their counterparts and are well-versed on the modalities that will be required.

“If we can’t travel with a team, we will email schools’ athletic trainers with the information they’ll need,” Ebel said. “We need to be specific so that the host school’s athletic trainer has the ability to help our student-athletes.”

The same expectation holds true for when the ‘Jackets host conference opponents and Ebel and company prepare to attend not just to their own athletes, but to those on the visiting team as well. In a given week, Sullivan’s email inbox may have the names Lonnie Lyon (Western Washington), Charity McCright (Central Washington), or Ken Becker (Northwest Nazarene) sprinkled throughout. A taped ankle here, ultrasound there; it’s all part of the universal understanding across the industry of serving all athletes.

Sullivan particularly looks up to Laurie Freebairn, who recently retired after a career spanning nearly three decades in charge of physiotherapy at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. “I really enjoy going different places because of the different athletic trainers I get to talk to,” Sullivan said. “Laurie was just amazing, and I talked to her quite a bit at the GNAC basketball tournament last year. She had really good insight into the profession.”

While Sullivan has counted on mentors and resources throughout the conference for enhancing her own skills, she and Ebel are also on the senior end of that spectrum when it comes to MSUB’s athletic training graduate program. While the trio are the only three certified athletic trainers at MSUB, at any given time the athletic training room is buzzing with graduate students eager to tape as many ankles as possible and perfect their ice-bag spinning technique.

“Ever since we have had the athletic training major, our teams have benefitted,” Woodin said. “I feel thankful for the program because the student athletic trainers here are so much more experienced and are highly capable of helping our athletes.”

ATHLETIC TRAINING BY THE NUMBERS Task/Supply Item Fastest Ankle Taped (Seconds) Ice Bags Made in One Minute Times (Per Month) Athlete Names are Re-written on Water Bottles Ice Bags Used Per Softball Practice Rolls of Tape Used in a Men’s Basketball Game Rolls of Tape Used in a Basketball Season Minutes Per Day Administering Ultra Sound

Amount 52 5 2 20-40 12 ~500 56

MSUB’s athletic trainers are responsible for ensuring their ATHLETIC TRAINER, FATHER, COACH “One of the biggest challenges is finding time for yourself. It’s easy supplies remain well-stocked at all times. for me to want to give our athletes everything and make sure they’re in the best condition possible, but it can be easy to lose a sense of needing to take care of yourself as well.” – Lindsay Sullivan on the whirlwind life of an athletic trainer.

“Run it again!” bellows Ebel after calling motion to a stop with his whistle. It’s somewhere around 7 p.m. on a Sunday and Ebel is less than an hour removed from an Alaska Airlines return flight to Billings. “We’ll practice four times this week since we only had one last week,” Ebel says. “Sunday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Friday.”

As unrecognizable as he is with the flowered Hawaiian shirt draped over him on Fridays, now Ebel has ditched the khakis and tucked-in navy blue polo for shorts, tennis shoes, and a t-shirt whose sleeves, from the looks of it, wound up on the losing end of a one-way battle with Sullivan’s scissors.

The ‘Jackets are finally done for the day and now it’s Ebel’s turn to run his own practice. His oldest son Ben and teammates gather around Ebel on the hardwood inside Alterowitz Gym, awaiting instructions before the next ball-handling drill.

“I’ve coached soccer, tennis, basketball, and football,” Ebel said. “Coaching has always been something that interests me and with my kids growing up it is a good way to connect with them.”

Ebel throwint up the ‘hang-loose’ sign at Yellowjacket Field during a soccer match.

Ebel treasures the time he gets to spend with his family and is thankful that his wife and four children have been able to adapt to his often unpredictable work schedule. “Angie has been great, and she is a great mom,” Ebel commented on his wife. “We have been blessed in that we’ve been able to allow her to raise our kids, and she has made my job and travel easier. She always jokes that when the school year ends we become a two-parent family again.”

At times the athletic training room appears to have a revolving door, a nonstop flood of ailing young men and women needing everything from pre-wrap to ice baths to 20 minutes wrapped up in a NormaTec Game Ready Unit. While the reward for MSUB’s athletic trainers may not be instant, when the final buzzer sounds and their athletes have left every ounce of energy on the court, they know they have done their job well.

“When they recognize that something you did helped them to do what they enjoy doing most, it is a good feeling,” Sullivan said. “To realize that they’re competitive because of something I helped them with is fulfilling.”

Ebel agrees. “The satisfaction in my job comes from helping somebody through a rehab situation and getting them back onto the field playing,” Ebel said. “I enjoy helping take somebody from the point where they’re injured and unable to compete to where they are performing in their sport again.”

In MSUB’s home men’s basketball game on Jan. 2, Ebel did not have the luxury or fortune of his hardest work coming in the form of preparation before the game and recovery after it. With less than a minute remaining, Yellowjacket star guard Jace Anderson tore his ACL and opened a new chapter in Ebel’s book of rehab.

Anderson will undoubtedly return to the hardwood and resume where he left off as a top scorer for the Yellowjackets.

While the points he scores as a senior will be credited to his ledger only, they are statistics that will have been made possible thanks in large part to Ebel.

In a way, MSUB’s athletic training staff is responsible for every statistic in a team’s season, from points scored, to ankles taped and ice bags twisted, to lives changed through the care and dedication to helping athletes thrive.

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