-: My name is Mike Goforth, and I'm an athletic trainer
here at Virginia Tech. My formal title is
Associate Athletic Director for Sports Medicine.
My job basically entails all the care and prevention
items for all of our student athletes.
We've got about 600 athletes over there,
both male and female, playing various sports,
and our job is, starting in the recruiting process,
doing a health history of them and then a physical
and then following them throughout their career.
Take care of any injuries they might have,
and just helping them with their career.
A typical day for us starts no later than probably
7:00 a.m., believe it or not.
And then, a lot of meetings during the morning.
We teach some classes over in our department as well.
And we take care of treatments on those injuries that
have sustained earlier. And then the afternoon,
we start taping and do treatment again.
Cover practices and then have a physician clinic
in the evening and hopefully get out of there around
seven o'clock at night.
So it's pretty much year-round during the,
what we call the preseason in August.
It's a lot of practices and meetings.
Then we get into the season, which hopefully
goes into January. Have a little break.
Come back, then they start working out again.
Then we go into spring ball.
That goes all the way to graduation.
Then start doing it all over again for first summer session.
My role in game day, we get to the field, we set it up.
We tape.
We'll travel 72 athletes.
We'll tape all of them up.
I'll talk to coach about any last-minute deals that
might be going on with the kids who can or can not play.
And then, just watching the game for any injuries
that might occur, and then take care of them as they come.
The biggest thing I rely on in my job is other people.
I've surrounded myself with some great people.
Physicians, athletic trainers and physical therapists
that all have a unique skill set that help
get our athletes back out there.
We have sports psychology, nutrition.
Acupuncturists. Massage therapists.
You name it. We've got a little bit of everything.
When people talk about Virginia Tech,
they talk about it being a special place.
I don't think people realize how far-reaching that is.
We're probably the only big-time school that I'm aware of
where people in the athletic department still teach.
My staff all teach a basic athletic injuries class
across campus, which I think is a pretty unique situation.
We've got 160 kids in there in the fall.
Hundred-sixty kids in the spring. And probably a dozen
of those will go on to do athletic training.
Another dozen will go on to medical school.
So I think that's a pretty unique project.
And we follow 'em and take an active role in their careers.
The other thing we do is we do a ton of research over there.
We've been working in conjunction with the folks
over in Norris Hall, doing a lot of engineering projects.
Helmet study, concussion studies.
We're doing a concussion biomarker study now,
where we're looking for a certain protein in the blood
that says somebody had a concussion.
And then Dr. Doom and those guys are doing a great job
with all the helmet research.