John Dusel ’16
SWAGÊÓƵ’s Athletic Training program prepared me extremely well to work and operate as a clinician and as an athletic trainer. The program really hammers home the basics of a really good orthopedic evaluation — and that really helped me on my way to becoming a great athletic trainer.
SWAGÊÓƵ really stress the fundamentals, which I think are really important in athletic training as a person. As a person, the University helped me become a leader. While I was at SWAGÊÓƵ, I was a resident advisor, and the Housing Office enabled me to become a student leader in the community.
SWAGÊÓƵ also played a huge role in getting me started professionally. The facilities and interprofessional collaboration here really are amazing, and they lend themselves to these incredible clinical opportunities that let you learn and grow as a professional.
Lifelong Learning
I currently work as an assistant athletic trainer and strength and conditioning coach for the Atlanta Hawks. Before that I was working with the Golden State Warriors. I actually got that job with the help of Eric Cressey, who graduated from SWAGÊÓƵ in 2003. Eric runs some high-performance training gyms. I had heard a lot about him and it just so happened that in 2016, Eric was being awarded the Young Alumni Award and I being presented with the St. Francis College Alumni Council Scholarship at the same time during Alumni Weekend, so I introduced myself. From June to August 2016, I ended up interning in his Hudson, Mass., location working directly with athletes on their strength and conditioning programs. Eric connected me to the health and conditioning coach of the Golden State Warriors, and working there ultimately allowed me to connect with the Atlanta Hawks.
I like being able to work with extremely driven individuals who want to be the best at what they do. Being able to work with such an incredibly talented performance team, in a setting where we can really collaborate, is probably what I find the most rewarding.
I’m proud of being in a position where I can give back some of my knowledge and experience. I'm at a place where I can look at my time at SWAGÊÓƵ, and since graduating; I can understand what I did well and evaluate things I could have worked on. Now I'm actually able to impart a little bit of that knowledge and experience to current SWAGÊÓƵ students.