Toby Brooks (4:42)

Greetings and welcome back to Becoming Undone, where we explore the defining moments when life unravels and what it takes to rebuild. I'm your host Toby Brooks, and today I'm honored to sit down with someone who's spent decades in the trenches of athletic training, retired at and mentor to many, John Lopez. John, thanks so much for joining me tonight.

John Lopez (5:00)

Thanks, Toby. It's nice to be with you too.

Toby Brooks (5:03)

So we've connected via LinkedIn, primarily where I've gotten increasingly, maybe I don't know how to say it, angry I've just really been fighting for my students more than anything. A lot of my former students are now in the college setting and they're struggling, they're hurting. And so oftentimes I kind of view them as people who can't fight for themselves for fear of their own jobs or their own promotion. And so I've just tried to bring some awareness to this and you've chimed in, and I really appreciate that. But before we get into that, I want to start at the beginning for you. Take me back to the beginning and tell us a little bit about your story.

John Lopez (5:44)

Well, surprisingly, I started off as an electrical engineer major at the University of Florida. But as many college freshmen foolishly do, the first year and a half of school was probably the greatest weekend of my life. So I ended up back home and thought I wanted to get into business and really did not get along with the accounting classes that I was taking. So I ended up transferring over to University of Tampa. And needless to say, my grade point average was not very well received. The registrar there said, you're, you need to go to community college and you go to junior college, maybe you can get your grades up, but to be Honest with you, Ms. Lopez, we don't think you'll ever make it out of college. Your. Your GPA is just rock bottom. That really got me upset because I breezed through high school without ever studying. I had a 4.0 graduating, graduated top of my class in high school, got admitted University of Florida without having to take an entrance exam. I knew I could do it. I just had been fooling around too much. So finally got busy, went to the JUCO route, went to classes at night, and my old high school football coach was talking to me one day and he said, what are you doing now? I said, well, trying to get out of the University of Tampa. And he goes, what do you want to do? And I said, really, what you want to do is coach. Like teach phys ed and, and coach. He says, well, if you ever want to come over here and help out with us, we can, we can use a part time coach. He said, I, I can't pay you as a regular faculty member slash coach, but I can put you on a part time basis. So that was my entree into the field of coaching. Got my grades up, admitted to University of Tampa, graduated, thought I had the best job in the world. I remember I got home, told mom, I said, God, I got the best job in the world. I'm coaching the JV offensive line. I'm the Assistant track and field coach over the viscous throwers and the shot putters. And I'm helping with the equipment manager role and I'm an athletic trainer, too. And she said, well, son, how much are you getting paid? And I said, well, it's 250 for the year, ma'. Am. He says, well, you need to start doing your own laundry now, because either that or you could just start paying me rent. Yeah, so, yeah, those, those were strange days. And I fell into athletic training just because my high school coach, a guy by the name of Tony Gianaitis, who actually was at the University of South Florida for many years, who was their first athletic trainer, got me interested in being an athletic trainer. I had been hurt quite a few times in high school. I was always fascinated by the things that he was doing. You know, he. He had a whirlpool that the dance club had made for him. He showed him how to do it, how to make it. They fabricated that. You know, he talked to me about ultrasound, about taping, about stretching, about rehab. We were talking about a lot of stuff back in the early 60s that I came to use later on. So he was a big influence on me and a great mentor to me over the, over the years. Yeah, I got the University of Tampa. They had not hired a full time athletic trainer in those days, so I kind of fell into it. And the athletic director there was a gentleman by the name of Sam Bailey, and he had coached football and was the athletic director at Line of Fields, did everything. And he said, I need somebody who knows what they're doing. I said, well, coach, I think I can help you. I got a good recommendation from my old high school coach at the high school and he brought me on. He didn't know whether I could tape an ankle or not, but that was my entree into it. Was still born in school at the same time working at night, still working in the afternoon. So I got a really heavy dose of what it's like to put in those 18 or 20 hour days and do them seven days a week too.

Narrator/Host (Toby Brooks) (9:50)

You know, listening to John talk about that registrar, telling him he'd never make it.

Toby Brooks (9:54)

Man, that hits home.

Narrator/Host (Toby Brooks) (9:57)

Every single high achiever I've ever known has faced that moment in their own way. That one person, that one setback, that one gatekeeper who tries to define the rest of your story based on your lowest chapter. Here's what I've learned. The people who make it out of that kind of moment, they're the ones who get stubborn about their potential. They don't take someone else's opinion as final. They decide sometimes right then and there, sometimes later on, that rock bottom is just the start of the rebuild. That's exactly what John did. So if you find yourself in that space right now wondering if you're ever going to get out of it, take John's story as proof. Your comeback starts when you choose to keep going. But John was far from finished. He was just getting started.

Toby Brooks (10:43)

Well, it was a, a different era for sure to hear that an athletic director is lining the field. And I mean, that, that shed some light on just the, the get it done mentality. There wasn't a massive budget in that time, and TV money wasn't part of it. You spent your career in the trenches of athletic training. When you look back now, we'll kind of start at the top and work our way in. When you look back, what do you think we got right, and what do you maybe wish that we had done.

Narrator/Host (Toby Brooks) (11:09)

Differently as a profession?

John Lopez (11:11)

Well, you know, I talk about this a lot today, and I guess people here in South Carolina, where I live, can, can say, well, you know, John Lopez is the grouchy old outback painter who sits around and complains about a lot of things. But I think what we're missing today and what really helped me an awful lot was as a young guy was that the mentorship was so important. And I can go through the list of mentors and what they meant to me and what they taught me, and I think we have lost a lot of that mentorship. We are certainly much better off today academically than we were before. When I was finishing up, there were only three education programs in the country. You know, Purdue had one, Indiana State had one run in Arizona, and, and there was nothing in Florida. There's nothing in the Southeast. So to, to get to the point where you could stand for the certification exam, which hadn't come into existence yet, you needed to have a breadth of knowledge. Well, I never had those classes. I was, I was a phys ed major. You know, most I had was anatomy and physiology, kinesiology. And so a lot of the things that I had to prepare for the BoC, I got that from my old mentors that had been through that who have been doing it for 15, 20, 30 years already and didn't have the, the book education, but they had the education in the trenches and the trainer.

Toby Brooks (12:46)

Right.

John Lopez (12:46)

And so they were able to give me that advice. Plus, hey, go buy this book. Go, go pick up this. I remember buying a book on modalities. You know, I never had a modalities class. I bought the book, I sat down, I read it. I read the entire book. That's how I learned how to use modalities. I think we're missing that today. But from an education perspective, our kids are far, far better educated than I was or any of the people that were meant to us. But the experiences that we had along the way, I think taught us an awful lot on how to navigate this crazy profession. Yeah, I'm not saying that what we did was right. I think we made a lot of mistakes along the line. One of the biggest mistakes that I think we made was National Athletic Trainer association didn't recognize what was happening from an education perspective that we were turning out a lot of students out of graduate programs and they weren't finding jobs in high schools because you remember your NATA history or your athletic training history. You know, it was our dream to have a high school athletic trainer in every high school across the country. And here we are today, almost 55 years later, saying, our dream is to have an athletic trainer in every high school. We just haven't been able to accomplish it. And one of the reasons is, is that many of those high schools are hesitant to pay a decent salary. And the athletic trainers over the years have said, hey, I can go someplace else and make more money. So we began to see that in the mid early 80s. We began to see a movement into the clinical settings that created a huge hornet's nest within the NATA and in the profession as a whole. But I think what we're seeing today as a continuation of students are graduating, saying, I'm not going to go take that job at $30,000 a year and work 80 hours a week. Yeah, I'll go to work for Boeing Aircraft. I'll go to work for Amazon. I'll go to work for the local police department. So they've got better quality of life and a lot more money. And so the. The profession has shifted. And I don't know that NATA is. And educators to a certain extent have been nimble enough to move along so that we can be a little bit better positioned so that we have better lifestyles, better salary, and as a whole, that we're advancing the profession and the association now, linking the two together. Some people say, well, that's an injustice and you shouldn't do it. It's a separate profession and the NATA is just an organization. But that organization, if you look at it, was the genesis of what we are as athletic players. When those early pioneers met in 1950. They set the stage for what we have today.

Toby Brooks (15:42)

Yeah, and it makes us old, honestly, to talk about the quote, unquote, traditional setting. People talk about emerging settings and, you know, whether it's physician practices or clinics or whatever, those are great opportunities. But I think we've lost touch with our true roots. I mean, that initial meeting of the NATA wasn't people working in industry. It wasn't people working in tactical, it was college folks that were doing the work of athletic trainers. That is the genesis of our profession. And if you look at how that setting has grown or not over the years, in many ways those jobs are still, like you said, Jackson Jills of all trades, undercompensated, overworked. And I don't see that changing anytime soon. I got into the profession because I wanted to work either college or professional sports. And as much as I loved that setting, it was unsurvivable for me. And. And there's only so much love you can have for a setting. If you can't be there for your family, you can't pay the bills on your mortgage, those kinds of things. There's a lot of talk today about burnout in athletic training. And coming from someone like you or me, people might think, oh, well, you know, like you said, the grouchy old men. Was burnout ever something you experienced? And if so, how did you deal with it or not?

John Lopez (17:08)

Well, yeah, I crashed and burned twice, big time. And I won't get into all the details of what happened, but thank God I had a wife who was strong enough to hold me up and kind of kick me in the backside, too, and get me going again. But, yeah, it's a real thing. And it can happen for a lot of different reasons. If you have a good support system, if you have a good spouse, a good family, and they understand, you know, what you're doing is important to you, but at the same time, make a decision to help you get yourself back on track, whether it's to get back into the trenches again or whether it's to get out and go someplace else.

Toby Brooks (17:50)

Right.

John Lopez (17:51)

Yeah, it's. It's true. And I think the biggest thing that I tried to do over the years, and again I have to go back to my old mentors, was to give young athletic trainers, especially interns that came through that period of time when I was working to give those interns good, sound advice on what jobs to take and which ones not to take, and not. Not trying to demean anybody that's in the profession. But there were some people that I knew very, very well that I would say, toby, don't ever go to work for them because they're, they're going to crush you. They'll kill you. And you'll be there 20 years from now still making $12,000 a year. Don't do that. As a matter of fact, you were an intern with one of my old interns a long time ago. Rod Martin with the Raiders.

Narrator/Host (Toby Brooks) (18:41)

Small world right here. I knew John as a legendary figure in the profession of athletic training. His time as an assistant with the expansion Tampa Bay Bucks and as a head AT with the Baltimore Colts were just some of the more visible stops in an illustrious career. The span five decades and culminated with him being enshrined in the NATA hall of Fame in 2012. To hear him talk about how burnout had nearly taken him out if not for the love and support of his wife Jane, is, in a word, empowering. The profession of at, particularly at the collegiate and pro levels, can be grueling. 80 plus hours a week, seven day weeks for months at a time. First to arrive, last to leave. That's what John did, sometimes for decades. But he's human too. He wasn't immune from the impact. And then to hear that one of my former mentors, legendary longtime Los Angeles and Oakland Raiders head AT Rod Martin, was an intern of his, that's pretty stinking cool. These little moments, what Lubbock Christian High.

Toby Brooks (19:43)

School head football coach Chris softly referred.

Narrator/Host (Toby Brooks) (19:45)

To in last episode as a godwink, reminded me of just how interconnected we all are. To know that I was blessed enough to learn from a legend who himself learned from a Hall of Famer. It's just a very special moment for me.

Toby Brooks (19:58)

Can you look at that model? I mean the NFL, that staff. Scott Touche has been there. I was an intern under H, we'll call him H. But Rod and Scott, you know, in an era where teams move towns and GMs fire everybody, the Raiders have consistently kept their folks. And that's a cultural change that you just don't see anywhere else. And so I learned a lot from those guys about how to create relationships so that that could actually happen. You don't see that very often at that level.

John Lopez (20:32)

Ron was my intern in 1977 at Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And then he went on to grad school and we kept in touch. He would call me periodically. He was working for a real taskmaster at University of Kentucky, a guy by the name Roy Don Wilson. And Roy Don is legendary. I mean, work Work, work. But. But really will take good care of his. His staff and his students. And then George Anderson, who was the longtime head athletic trainer for the Raiders, and I had become friends, usually because we would go play the Raiders and they'd kick our rear ends real good. But I was at the NHA meeting in Philadelphia, and George walks into the. The NFL had a group at that time called NFL Athletic Trainers and flats. It was a precursor to pfats. And he said, well, Al finally let me hire an athletic trainer, so if any of you guys know somebody that's good, I need somebody who's not afraid to work. And with that, he says, I'm going downstairs to have a drink. And you left and walked out of the room. So I immediately jumped up, picked up the payphone, out of the hallway, called Rod. I said, what are you doing right now? He said, I'm not doing anything. I'm sitting in College park, and he's working at the University of Maryland, covering basketball. And I said, I'm going to give you a phone number. You need to try to call him as soon as possible. But he's in Philadelphia right now, so I'll give you the room number in a few minutes after I talk to him. So fortunately, he was able to get hired with him and work with George. George was a good, very good mentor to him. Yeah, again, I think, you know, it's. It's giving somebody the recommendation of, where do you point yourself? What direction are you going to go in? If it be the high school, are you going to point them in the direction where a high school is going to sit there and work with them as an athletic trainer? Or are they going to have them line in the fields and doing all this other stuff and really not listening to them, not paying attention to them, having a coach overrule them all the time, so. And then you end up losing a young, bright athletic trainer because they didn't get the support system that they had.

Narrator/Host (Toby Brooks) (22:43)

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Toby Brooks (22:52)

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Toby Brooks (23:48)

I know there's. I think you're right on with that. I mean, the, the number of graduates and the number of accredited programs is problematic. It's a supply and demand issue. And the supply, in many way, this continues to outpace the demand for jobs that pay what they pay and require what they require. And so I've long said that there are far too many accredited programs and many of them hanging on by their fingernails in this era of higher education. You know, three or four graduates in a program. I was part of one. I was the last full time program director at SIU Carbondale before ultimately that program was shuttered because it was a low enrollment program. You look at that, coupled with the fact that we really need in many ways to kind of follow what coaches have done. I just saw this week that a coach from Oklahoma State was the first strength coach to get a million dollar contract.

John Lopez (24:39)

Right.

Toby Brooks (24:39)

We don't see that in athletic training. We haven't been able to differentiate ourselves. As you know, if I hire John Lopez to be the athletic trainer for my team, my team is going to perform whatever, my organization's going to be better. It's just plug and play. Grind this person into the ground and we'll bring somebody else in that can do the same. And it just perpetuates this kind of abuse culture that I think we've all seen sadly in so many, you know.

John Lopez (25:06)

I think the question becomes is how did that strength coach in Oklahoma State get to a million dollars? Well, we've seen strength coaches align themselves with coaches, whether it be football coaches, basketball coaches. Unfortunately, we, we've always had adversarial roles with coaches. So we're, you know, coaches. You see me coming going, oh, don't give me any more bad news. I don't want to hear that. Who are you holding out today? What's going on. Who blew up their knee? What. What happened? Well, I think that we've looked at it from a perspective of not working with the strength coaches and not working with the coaching staff in a cohesive manner so that we're there, provide the very best care and provide the very best product on a court, on the field, wherever it may be. And a lot of the athletic trainers over the years, and I'm guilty of it too, have been hostile to coaches. So the coaches are the ones who begin to make the money because they got the wins and losses. I'm the guy who's holding out the starting quarterback on Saturday. I'm not them. I'm not the guy they really like. Coach just won the game. That's the guy who's going to end up getting more money from the boosters club. And today with all the stuff going on with Nil and the transfer portal and stuff like that, everything's just, just accelerated past us so quickly that we're still trying to figure out how we can find good jobs. Less are we going to make enough money to improve over the top?

Toby Brooks (26:32)

Sure. And I've seen it both ways. When I took over at Liberty, they were just changing the payment model. The head football at was actually paid out of the football budget before I got there. And they pulled that out and put it into the general athletics fund with the intent being, you know, if you made the head coach mad on a given day, he couldn't fire you. And there's wisdom in that. I see that. But I also see how our brothers and sisters in strength and conditioning have aligned with that model. And in some practice settings, you see this more and more, whether it's the analytics folks, whether it is sports nutritionists, sports psychologist, this idea of an inclusive, interprofessional performance team. And it's not me versus the coach. It is what is in the best interest. I mean, these, these athletes are, are multimillion dollar investments. I'm not holding them out because I want you to lose. I'm holding out to protect your investment, to help him be or her be as successful as they can be and back and effective on the field. And it's not always been viewed that way. And part of that is I think the way coaches have viewed what we do and, you know, we are the bad people who hold their athlete out as opposed to someone that's trying to help them get healthy as quickly as possible.

John Lopez (27:50)

Well, I think that we're guilty of falling into that trap, of becoming an adversary rather than an Ally. But I also can say that in many respects, when you work for the athletics part of the organization, you know, you're the one who basically is going to have to live by their rules. I remember many, many years ago at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Dan Hooker, who at that time was their head athletic trainer and was also a physical therapist, went. Went to the administration and said, we, we can no longer work for the coaching staff. We need to be a part of student Health Services. So they moved the entire staff over to Student Health Services. So now they were working for the team position. Was the director of Student health services, an MD and they had nurses and they had PAs, and they had physical therapists and they had athletic trainers, and they were all under one roof in Student Health Services. Now, that's a great model to have. Now, will they make a million dollars a year like Bill Belichick is going to be making? Probably not. Right. But they're also not going to get fired either. They're going to have their jobs for 20 or 30 years and really do a great job providing great student health services via athletics. Is that the best model to operate under? I don't really know. I think in many respects it is because it purifies your services and you're not incumbent to a head coach. Because if the head coach gets fired and the new coach comes in and goes, well, I don't like John Lopez, and he was loyal to Toby, and Toby's gone. Now I'm going to get rid of Lopez because I'm gonna bring my own guy in. Yeah. And that's kind of what.

Toby Brooks (29:34)

Well, sadly, we've. We've gotten the worst of both worlds because we haven't aligned with that model. And that still happens today. A coach will come in and bring in their staff, so we don't get the salary benefit that the strength and conditioning coach might get. And we also maybe were protected a little bit from that. And in some model. I know University of Kansas has pulled theirs out and put it in the hospital system, which is a unique model.

John Lopez (30:00)

Right.

Toby Brooks (30:00)

But it just really feels to me like no matter which direction we go, we've managed to shoot ourselves in the foot either way.

John Lopez (30:07)

Well, there's a lot of different models that are out there. When I. When I left the NFL in 1984, I went into a private orthopedic practice back in Maryland. At that time, it was six orthopedic surgeons and myself. We formed a partnership to create a sports medicine center, which they had not done before in that orthopedic group, there was one at the hospital, but it was a whole different model. So from the standpoint of creating a model where it allows you to get out from underneath athletics, get out from underneath that traditional high school or university system was a good thing for us back in 1984. Now today, you see that all across the country where you've got large hospital systems, we have focused so much on education and providing a vehicle for continuing education on an annual basis at a big, expensive annual meeting, that we've made a big mistake along the way. We've got to change our model or else we're doomed.

Toby Brooks (31:05)

I think you're absolutely right. There's so much to unpack there and maybe for another conversation, but I can certainly see where there are marketable opportunities that we've missed the boat on and in many ways kind of been swooped by other professions. You look at the proliferation of sports science, it's a whole new certification with the nsca. Now, athletic trainers could have done that. We, we could have been the experts in analytics and data collection and how that informs. So I'm not just the enemy coming to talk to the coach. I've got data that says that this athlete is trending toward an injury, an overuse condition. And we, we didn't do that. We. We allowed essentially a whole new profession to spring up under our noses. And now we're left wondering, you know, when those jobs are created. We kept hearing there's not money for raises in athletic training. Well, we also weren't doing anything to add value to the organization, in my opinion. And what's the motivation for an athletics department to pay me more if I'm not offering them anything that's more advantageous, whereas an analytics person can offer them something totally new?

John Lopez (32:18)

Well, again, I think, you know, it's the level of care that that organization can provide or would like to provide. Certainly if you're at the professional level of the NFL or Major League Baseball, then the analytics, the quote, sports scientists, they all come in to play again. Now the question becomes is, you know, are you adept enough to be able to manage all those professions together? When I was still back in Towson, Maryland, we took care of a Canadian Football League franchise for two years. They had a CFL team in the United States. So we took care of a team called the Baltimore Stallions. I was criticized because I brought in an athletic trainer friend of mine who was a massage therapist. And the reason for them that was that I wanted those services being provided in our athletic training room. I didn't want him in some little sleazy massage parlor somewhere because our guys are going to end up getting in trouble down there. We brought a chiropractor. Insurgent almost struck down going, what are you doing laying a chiropractor in here? Well, the problem was they were going to go see a chiropractor on their own. I want that chiropractor working with me. So I brought a physical therapist in the athletic room. We were working together as a cohesive.

Toby Brooks (33:33)

Team and that's what communicating and the athlete is at the center of those conversations. Whereas if it's a distributed model, everybody's doing their own thing. And a lot of times we're combating with what each other's doing.

John Lopez (33:46)

There needs to be a whole new approach to it. And you know, I, I don't want to sound like I'm bashing the nata, but I really am. I think we've got to really start to wake up because if we're not the leader, if the NATA is not the leader, then who's, who else is going to fill that role? Right now, nobody's filling it. Everybody's kind of off doing their own little thing.

Toby Brooks (34:07)

Yeah, we can talk about the profession for quite some time, but I really want to kind of drill down, as we're kind of nearing our time here, to how this impacts actual people. Newcomers who are entering the profession. Remember how excited you were to find out you were a certified athletic trainer. These students have incurred six plus years of education and the cost associated with that they've sat for and they've passed that board of certification exam. They get that first job and now they're being worked to death and they're not making much money. So thinking about reform in athletic training, work, life balance, even our identity, what's the cultural shift that you think is overdue and how can we help that younger generation of athletic trainer?

John Lopez (34:52)

Well, I think the first thing that we need to do as educators is to talk about the value of family. Especially if you're going to be married. Your spouse has to be prepared to understand what you do as an athletic trainer. If it wasn't for my wife, I would not have made it. I made it for over 50 years. But thank God Jane was the one who could constantly pull me back into reality and say, hey, you know what? You've been doing this an awful lot today. She's always telling me, why do you go to sleep with your cell phone under your pillow? Well, because somebody might call me at 2 o' clock in the morning, and she would whack me in the hand, say, go back to sleep. Thankfully, she didn't get up in the other room and go call me on my cell phone to his warrant. But I think we've got to take that, that first step, which is make the people that support us that are part of our family, husbands, wives, children, mothers, fathers in laws, all where what's involved in this crazy profession that we're in. And I know, I hear you talk about your family, how important they are, and how upsetting it is to you when you are not there to see that last baseball game or be able to go to graduation or to miss that music recital. And I can't begin to tell you how many times I missed those things with my daughter. I. I can. I think that's one of the big mistakes that we make as a profession, one of the big mistakes that we've made as an association. More importantly, though, I think is we as athletic trainers need to teach the other athletic trainers that we're working with, that we're educating, that are doing graduate assistantships, although we're not supposed to officially have that anymore. I see more education programs now advertising for graduate assistantships. They're getting paid a decent salary to go to school at the same time through an approved KD program. So if we. We don't change our methodology and understand it, embrace it, you know, I look at it as a big, big family. That's. That's the way I've kind of looked at it. I was fortunate enough to have those older mentors who would pick me up the phone and call me and say, how are you doing? Yeah, you guys just played the Pittsburgh Steelers yesterday afternoon, and, man, you got really hammered. How many guys you got in the trailer every day, John? And they would say, you know, if you need anything, give me a call and make sure you're taking care of your family at home.

Narrator/Host (Toby Brooks) (37:26)

I gotta jump in here again. It's funny how many times in the past few months I've heard guests talk about how important it was for their mentors to call, to write, to pull aside for a word, to today, to text, whatever the format or medium, to inspire and to encourage. Dick. Tell me.

John Lopez (37:45)

Did it.

Narrator/Host (Toby Brooks) (37:46)

Multiple guests I talked to, former players and coaches still do it to this day. The lesson has stuck for me and it's changed me. So I want to tell you how not to brag. Actually, quite the opposite, to share just how powerful this practice has become for me and how it keeps on changing my life. First, I Created a list of every person I could think of at my old job back at Texas Tech that I wanted to thank for the past almost 15 years just to tell them what they meant to me. Each week, even now, I hand write a thank you card to least three people on that list and I send it to them. Then I've started sending episode artwork along with a handwritten thank you note to every guest. It's a labor of love. Each one takes me about an hour and a half. And after the frame, the print, the postage, it's not a small investment to systematically work through over a hundred guests to tell them thanks, even in the classroom. I've also started having my students at Baylor write a little bit each day in class. I give them a blank 3 by 5 note card and the prompt is always the same. Write a praise or a gratitude on one side, flip it over, write a prayer request or a concern on the other. I gather them up before we start the lesson. Every day I read them, I pray over them. And lately I write back a word of encouragement, a thank you, a reminder that I prayed for their grandma or that job interview that they were concerned about last week. So yeah, sure, it takes time, but I'm convinced that all of this matters Then, most recently in my job, we interviewed a candidate for a position we had open. He did pretty well, but it just wasn't quite the right fit. Now I've been on the receiving end of job interviews that lead to disappointment. Didn't get it. I know the hurt ego to not get the spot that you really wanted. So for the first time ever, I sent a handwritten note of gratitude to the applicant that we opted not to hire. Just to hopefully encourage them, provide some helpful feedback. Trying to inspire others to maybe do the same. Because it felt so good for me to do it. I posted about that practice on LinkedIn and the response was overwhelmingly positive. There was one naysayer, but whatever. So far it's drawn more than 35,000 impressions. Over 400 reactions, 20 comments, 6 free posts. Not bad for me. Not long after, I get a DM from this guy who'd been liking and commenting on several of my posts, John Lopez. Turns out he was an NATA hall of Famer and oddly, he DMed me and asked if he could have my mailing address. Said he wanted to send me something. About a week later, I get a handwritten card in the mail from South Carolina. I opened it up. It's literally sitting on my desk right now as I'm recording this. Where it has been pretty much since it arrived. Let me read it to you. Quote, just a short note to say thank you. And you're correct. Short notes of thanks are truly becoming a thing of the past. I, however, refuse to allow that to happen. Be well and thrive, exclamation point. Signed Lopes. End quote. This is a legend in my field, a man I've never met in person, mind you, but he took the time and the expense and the effort to send me a note of thanks and encouragement for all the talk about the rampant college cheating and plagiarism, not to mention the gloom and doom horror stories about how AI is coming for all our jobs, or worse, Terminator esque dystopian destiny. There's one thing you cannot dispute. AI will never be able to take or to replicate or to substitute the value and the impact of true human connection. John. It was a card sent thousands of miles to some random dude he'd connected with on LinkedIn. For me, it's been a powerful reminder to keep on doing the same thing for others and to pay it forward for that. I say thanks, John.

John Lopez (41:44)

Those are the old guys that it been around the block several times who understood the value of what it was to take care of each other. Yeah.

Toby Brooks (41:53)

And we were talking off camera before the interview started and. And a little bit about Dick. Tell me. And that's one thing that stood out in that conversation for me is this was a guy who was a major college head coach and he made time for people. It's. It's fascinating to me that we live in such a super connected world. I've got a phone in my pocket. I can message you 24 7, 360. I've got more access to people in my community than I've ever had in my life. But the fact of the matter is fewer people call me for that kind of thing than probably ever have. I can remember being 10 or 11 years old and my buddy would call me on the phone just because it was fun to be on the phone, you know, on the cord. And we don't do that anymore. And it's made me realize that I need to be more purposeful about that with students that I mentor, to be more present for them and not just be like, hey, you know, message me, send me a text if you need me. There's a difference between send me a text when you need me and me calling or texting you to tell you I'm concerned about you and, hey, how are things going? I know things were rough the last time we chatted. Are you okay? And that takes more effort on my part. But that's the way you serve and lead the way I feel like I've been commanded to do.

John Lopez (43:09)

I, I was very blessed to have had a lot of those guys that walked through my life, and they were primarily older collegiate outlet trainers and guys in the NFL that would pick up that phone and call me. I try to do that today myself. I try to pick up the phone at least once a day and call someone and just say, hey, Toby, how you doing? How's things going? What's the weather? Jordan, the yard this weekend? You guys are going on vacation? How was your vacation? You know, those are the little things that if we don't have that connectivity, then, boy, this, this profession just can cheer you up. Yeah, I wish I met your coach out there. Sounds like he was somebody that was so special that you really want to just be there to experience all things. I hear you talk about his recruiting, his methodology, you know, how tough he could be on you, but then again, he could put his arm around you and say, are you okay and what do you need? And are you doing all right? And those are the things that we're just not getting that enough done as athletic trainers today.

Toby Brooks (44:13)

Absolutely agree. Again, talking to retired NFL athletic trainer John Lopez. John, it's been a real treat. I thank you for joining me tonight. I've got a couple other ones here that I always ask all my guests. I love music and the emotions that it can represent. If we were to watch a montage of your life, your career, what song would you want to play in the background and why?

John Lopez (44:34)

Oh, geez, Toby, I should have been prepared for that, but I wasn't. You know, someone asked me the other day, you know, what, what, what kind of music are you into now? What are you listening to? And I think at my point in life, I, I like to listen to jazz today, and not necessarily vocal jazz, but I love Ella Fitzgerald and her arrangements and her ability to cross over from one far side of jazz all the way over into the more traditional music when she was singing George and Ira Gershwin's songs the other day. But then on the other side of the school, I love listening to Willie Nelson. And I was a big country music fan growing up. You know, we, we listened to a lot of country music in the training room for years and years, and old time country, you know, Hank Williams and some of the old guys in there, George Jones.

Toby Brooks (45:28)

And I love that you say in the training room as I walk through facilities today, you know, pregame taping and that kind of thing. It's dead silent mostly. Everybody's got their headphones in, and I'm like, I actually had a CD that I burned when I was at utep. That was our taping mix. And, you know, you put that thing in and that's the pregame mix, and that's just missing today. I, I, I increasingly sound like this lamenting, angry old man because everything's different today. But I really do think some of it was better.

John Lopez (46:02)

Well, yeah, and I think music, you can't, you can't hear it in the training room today like you used to. We used to burn that country music station up in Tampa, Florida, for years and years. And I think that those are the important things today.

Toby Brooks (46:20)

Well, last one, John. What for John Lopez remains undone.

John Lopez (46:25)

Well, you know, my daughter recently told me that she wants to put my grandson in T ball. I got pretty upset about that, to be honest with you. I am not a big proponent of youth sports. We could go talk about that for a couple of weeks. And, and the things that I dislike about sports, I think right now, if there was anything that I can do is be able to spend 247 with my grandson, who's 6 years old, and be able to give him the knowledge, the insight to be able to go play all sports, to have fun. You know, like my dad used to say, when I wanted to sign up for little League, he goes, just go play in the backyard. And by the way, don't hit your sister. So I think that's the best advice that I could give somebody, and that's what I would really like to do right now, is spend a lot more time with my grandson, watch him grow up.

Toby Brooks (47:16)

That's beautiful. Yeah. As a recent empty nester, there are a lot of days when it's beautiful outside and there's nothing I wouldn't give to go play game catch. That is heard and understood. Well, John, thanks so much for joining me tonight. It's been a real treat.

John Lopez (47:30)

This is John Lopez, and I am undone.

Narrator/Host (Toby Brooks) (47:33)

In a profession that too often forgets its own heartbeat, John Lopez reminds us of the power of persistence, mentorship, and being human. First, his story isn't just about athletic training. It's about doing the work, taking the hits, and still showing up for the people who count on you. The sidelines to the front lines of reform. John's career speaks to what can happen when someone chooses to lead, even after being told they'd never make it. It's not just a lesson in athletic training. It's a lesson in life, and if you're paying attention, it just might change the way you show up for others and for yourself. I'm thankful to John for stopping in today, and I hope you enjoyed our conversation. If you or someone you care about find yourself in the middle of a purpose storm of your own, then take heart. You've found your place. You found your people. Here At Becoming Undone, we've built an entire community around the idea that when life comes apart, it's not the end. It's just the beginning of something better. So now it's your move. Subscribe Share this episode with someone who needs it. Leave a review Let me know what resonated with you most. Or better yet, reach out. I'd be honored to support support you during your own comeback. If you're a high achiever ready to lean into growth, clarity and real transformation, check out my free weekly Undone newsletter. It drops every Sunday with zero fluff, zero sales pitch. Just ideas, insights and inspiration to help you rebuild better. You can sign up now@undonepodcast.kit.com if you've got ideas for the newsletter that you'd like to share with the community, send those along too. I'd love to share them. Give you credit for if you're really ready to level up, whether as an individual, a team, an organization, I'm here for that too. I can help through my coaching and consulting platform TB Advantage, where I work with leaders and difference makers to navigate change, conquer burnout, and rediscover purpose.

Toby Brooks (49:34)

Let's talk.

Narrator/Host (Toby Brooks) (49:35)

Shoot me a message@tobyndonepodcast.com stick around.

Toby Brooks (49:40)

You're not going to want to miss.

Narrator/Host (Toby Brooks) (49:41)

What'S coming up next. I've got former Air Force airmen turned motivational speaker Kewan Amy, who lost his eyesight, not to mention his career, in a horrible motorcycle accident. But today he's a church drummer and an inspiration to thousands as a motivational speaker where he says while the accident took his eyesight, it could never rob him of his vision. Then we'll have Mr. Motivation himself, Shaun Murphy, who overcame poverty in a home without a father growing up before defying the odds to become a military vet, an entrepreneur, motivational speaker and a coach. This and more coming up on Becoming Undone. Becoming Undone is a nitrohype creative production, written and produced by me, Toby Brooks. Follow the journey at Becoming Undone Pod on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and you can connect with me personally at tobyjbrooks across those platforms. Hit on my link tree@linktr.ee Toby Brooks to access everything in one place. If you enjoyed the show, be sure to listen, subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. Apple, Spotify, Iheart, you name it. Till next time, keep stitching it all back together. Keep getting better.