{"id":4571,"date":"2023-12-01T17:08:17","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T22:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/?p=4571"},"modified":"2025-01-28T09:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T14:18:10","slug":"from-seton-hall-to-super-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/2023\/12\/from-seton-hall-to-super-bowl\/","title":{"rendered":"From Seton Hall to Super Bowl"},"content":{"rendered":"
David Glover Jr., M.S. \u201904, assistant athletic trainer for the Kansas City Chiefs, learned the fundamentals at Seton Hall.<\/div><\/div>\n

By Molly Petrilla<\/p>\n

Red, white and yellow confetti whirled past David Glover Jr., M.S. \u201904 as he stood on the football field last February, emotions overflowing. \u201cYou\u2019re so excited and you don\u2019t even know where to go, what to do,\u201d he says. \u201cEverybody\u2019s hugging, everybody\u2019s crying. You\u2019re looking for your parents in the stands. You\u2019re grabbing confetti and feeling some of it in your pockets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like being a kid on Christmas morning,\u201d he adds, \u201cand getting every toy you\u2019ve ever wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kansas City Chiefs had just won Super Bowl LVII, and as their assistant athletic trainer, Glover was there for every moment \u2014 just as he is for all the team\u2019s practices and regular season games. Whether he\u2019s fixing a tweaked knee, returning a post-surgery shoulder to full strength or helping prevent injuries on the field, it\u2019s Glover\u2019s job to keep Chiefs players healthy and safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest misconception I\u2019d like to dispel is that athletic trainers just tape ankles,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more involved,\u201d from countless rehab sessions and weight room workouts to treatment plan huddles and constant on-field monitoring.<\/p>\n

Seven days a week for at least half the year, his alarm goes off at 4:05 a.m. for his own pre-work workout, and he doesn\u2019t get home until after 8 p.m. \u2014 later on a game night. How many hours does he work in a week? \u201cAfter a while, you just stop counting,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I don\u2019t ever feel like I can just take a day off or not be making the best decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a job that Glover has dreamed of since he first learned about it in high school. After he strained his hip flexor during a basketball game his senior year, the school\u2019s athletic trainer helped him recover \u2014 and then allowed Glover to shadow him. \u201cI really fell in love with figuring out how the body worked and if something was broken on it, how you fix that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He studied health fitness and exercise science at Central Michigan University. Then his academic adviser, Rene Revis Shingles \u2014 an award-winning athletic trainer and the first Black woman inducted into the Athletic Training Hall of Fame \u2014 suggested he consider Seton Hall for graduate school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey allowed us to be involved in everything in the training room,\u201d Glover says of Seton Hall\u2019s athletic training master\u2019s program. \u201cAnd they were big sticklers on knowing your anatomy and being good with your hands. That\u2019s something that\u2019s always stuck for me. In athletic training, your hands can tell so much more than your eyes can in terms of checking joint play or taping.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued straight into a seasonal intern role with the New York Jets and joined the Chiefs in 2006. He\u2019s been there ever since, including in 2013, when tight end Travis Kelce came onto the team \u2014 and then missed his rookie season due to a knee injury.<\/p>\n

A recovered Kelce won the NFL\u2019s Ed Block Courage Award the following year, selected by his teammates for showing sportsmanship and strength. \u201cWhen my boss told [Kelce] he had won, the first thing he said was, \u2018Well, I want to take DG with me to Baltimore when I go out there to accept the award,\u2019\u201d Glover says. \u201cI was just dumbfounded that he would want to take me with him.\u201d But after all, it was DG who had helped him day in and day out as he rehabbed his injury and began playing again.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Glover himself was the one accepting an award: the Tim Davey AFC Assistant Athletic Trainer of the Year Award. \u201cI was completely and totally blown away that I was nominated, and then to receive the award was more than I could have imagined,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

That recognition and his two Super Bowl rings are certainly high points, but Glover says the most gratifying part of his job is helping an injured player get back on the field, and then watching him score his first touchdown or get his first sack. \u201cThe excitement when they come off the field and they thank you \u2014 that thank you is the most genuine one you may have ever gotten,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy\u00a0of Kansas City Chiefs<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Molly Petrilla Red, white and yellow confetti whirled past David Glover Jr., M.S. \u201904 as he stood on the football field last February, emotions overflowing. \u201cYou\u2019re so excited and you don\u2019t even know where to go, what to do,\u201d he says. \u201cEverybody\u2019s hugging, everybody\u2019s crying. You\u2019re looking for your parents in the stands. You\u2019re…<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingFrom Seton Hall to Super Bowl<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":5632,"featured_media":4649,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,259,317,10,323],"tags":[42],"class_list":["post-4571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-articles-2020-2024","category-profile","category-sports","category-sports-2","tag-sports","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5632"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4571"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4654,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4571\/revisions\/4654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}