The Exponential Factor

Stine Emrick, BS Kinesiology and Health Promotion – Louisiana Tech (2020)
Master of Educational Leadership- Community College/Higher Education- Northern Arizona University

My name is Stine Emrick, I am currently the Associate Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Northern Arizona University. I began my journey in strength and conditioning while I was still in college, competing as a student athlete on La Tech’s women’s soccer team. I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in strength and conditioning while I was still in high school and training with a strength and conditioning coach, recognizing that I could develop my physical qualities that made me successful at playing soccer. Due to that, I chose to pursue a degree in Kinesiology while at Louisiana Tech. Through my education and career as a collegiate athlete, I was able to be exposed to collegiate strength and conditioning and recognized it as something that I wanted to pursue specifically. 

My first internship was during the summer of 2018 at Next Level Sports Performance in Golden, CO. Although the private sector was not ultimately where I wanted to end up in a full time position, it gave me the foundation for interactions with athletes. I then completed other internships, the first being at Colorado State University during the summer of 2019 under the leadership of Joey Guarascio (currently the head strength and conditioning coach at Florida Atlantic University), Carl Miller (athletic performance coach at Indiana), Zach Higginbotham (Director of Sports Science at Michigan), Shelton Gaffney (director of football strength and conditioning coach at Bethune-Cookman), and Elijah Blackman (assistant strength and conditioning coach for football at Kansas State). Following my summer at CSU I joined Coach Kurt Hester (current director of football sports performance) as an intern for the entire 2019-2020 year at La Tech. Here I continued to be poured into by Coach Hester and the rest of his staff (Aaron Schultz (assistant strength and conditioning coach at Kansas State), Cody Bascom, Troy Johnson (assistant strength and conditioning coach at Florida International University), and Brian Walker (assistant head of strength and conditioning at IMG Academy)). During my time as an intern at Tech, I studied and earned my Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS). My experiences in my internships lead me to pursue a graduate assistantship to be able to earn my master’s degree as well as get full time experience coaching various teams.          

I applied and was hired as a GA at Northern Arizona University in the spring of 2020 and began coaching during the summer of 2020. I spent 9 months as a GA before being hired full time and eventually being promoted to Associate Head Strength and Conditioning Coach. While here I have been personally responsible for women’s golf, women’s dive, women’s soccer, and women’s basketball. In addition to these teams, I have had the opportunity to work with men’s basketball, women’s swim, sprints and jumps, and throws. I have heavily assisted with the football team and all aspects of their training. While at NAU, I have had the privilege of working with several fantastic strength and conditioning coaches who have shaped, grown, and challenged me. Those coaches include Michael Gragg (head strength and conditioning coach at Harding University), Jake Buehler (strength and conditioning coach at Grand Haven High School), Victoria Saucedo (director of sports performance for women’s basketball at Virginia Commonwealth University), Sam Lackey (director of strength and conditioning coach at Lamar High School), Jaylon “Beef” Watson (director of sports performance at Jackson State University), Tyler Shumate (assistant director of athletic performance), Lauren Sale (assistant sports performance coach), Taylor Bissel (director of sports performance at Southeastern Oklahoma State University), and others. 

My role consists of the full development of the women’s soccer and women’s basketball teams here at NAU. That includes all resistance training that they participate in, any energy system development, and speed development. With both of these teams, data is collected and analyzed for various metrics including but not limited to peak power, jump height, hydration levels, yardage/load during practice and more. My involvement with these teams includes travel and attendance of practices and games where I also play roles. Not only am I heavily involved with my own teams, but I also play a role in implementation of resistance training, energy system development, speed development, and travel with the football team. Beyond the coaching that I do, I am responsible for all intern education and curriculum development. We have had over a dozen interns earn GA positions or otherwise after their internship at NAU. Those interns include Shawn Field (former assistant strength and conditioning coach at UNLV), Johnny Goldstein (head strength and conditioning coach at Ventura College), Jordan Elias (head strength and conditioning coach at Desert Edge High School), Sean Riden (assistant strength and conditioning coach at Frostburg State University), Will Fazende (assistant sports performance coach at the University of Evansville, also a graduate of Louisiana Tech), Logan Bayus (head strength coach at O’Connor High School), Nick Brown (graduate assistant at Mercer University), Johnny Atnip (graduate assistant at Fairfield University), Lex Mohler (graduate assistant at Central Missouri University), Tommie Dorsey (graduate assistant at St. John’s University), and Marlise Karson (sports performance coach at Mankind Physical Therapy).

While I have been a strength and conditioning coach I have obtained my CSCS, and my Functional Movement Systems (FMS) Level 1 certification. Although I have not yet pursued certifications in these areas, I have been exposed to Functional Range Conditioning (FRC) and Reflexive Performance Reset (RPR) and have been educated in those areas by individuals who hold certifications in those systems. Beyond education on these systems, I have had the opportunity to continue my education by attending national conferences as well as continuing education on my own through various organizations. 

Taylor Stahly Reed, B.S. Exercise and Health Promotion 2019

Growing up, sports were a huge part of my life. Basketball was my main sport, but I played everything from flag football, to softball, to track and field. I always knew that I wanted to be a coach to stay close to sports and everything that they teach you in life. I came to Louisiana Tech in the fall of 2017 and graduated two years later with a Bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology with an emphasis in Exercise and Health Promotion. During my time at Tech, I was a member of the women’s basketball team, which only enhanced my desire to become a collegiate basketball coach. Getting my degree in Kinesiology was the best choice I could have made to help me take my first steps into the coaching field.

Upon graduating in 2019, I moved to Houston where I became a Graduate Assistant for the women’s basketball team at Houston Christian University, a small Division 1 school competing in the Southland Conference. I have been with the program for 5 years now, where I have held titles as an Assistant Coach, Recruiting Coordinator, and now Associate Head Coach. In 2021-2022, our team won the Southland Conference, the first women’s basketball team to do so in school history. Throughout my time in coaching, there are many moments that I look back on my time at Tech and am thankful for the degree path that I chose. Kinesiology is a broad field with so many directions that you can go in it. I have found that a lot of people choose Kinesiology to get into coaching because it normally involves conversations about sport and its movement at some point in your curriculum. However, I have found that my degree is applied almost every day that I come to work.

Basketball is a game of almost constant movement and change of direction. Understanding physiology and energy systems within the body is crucial in getting the most out of your players during the different phases of a season. Players will typically play anywhere from 25-30 games in a 4-month time span, so being on the same page with your other staff members is critical. Athletic trainers are one of the most important positions in college athletics. Inevitably, players will get hurt or sick throughout a season. I have found that because of my degree in Kinesiology, I am able to have knowledgeable conversations with our athletic training staff about player injuries and recovery times, which allows me to have an overall idea of how our team is recovering to their various training sessions throughout the season and how the wear and tear of the season effects their overall performance.

Another area of importance to college athletics is Strength and Conditioning. In 2020, I became a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS). Although I am not the S&C coach for our team, I work closely with him during the pre-season to strategize how many days a week our team will lift, for how long, and how we will test their progress and performance along the way. We also come up with various conditioning tests for our players and implement them during the preseason. There are also times that I will step in and supervise our players during their training sessions if our S&C coach is out sick or tied up with another team. Without a degree in Kinesiology, I never would have had a knowledge base to pass the CSCS exam and would most likely not be able to have training and programming conversations with our teams S&C coach.

To me, coaching was an obvious profession from the start. Unlike other professions, coaching doesn’t require a certain degree for you to get into the field. In my opinion, however, Kinesiology is the best option for anyone considering getting into the field of coaching. Although sports are typically viewed as strategy and skill based on the particular game you play, coaching becomes much more holistic when you look at it from a science-based standpoint in the areas of physiology, anatomy, and strength and conditioning. The knowledge I gained from my professors at Louisiana Tech was second to none and I cannot speak highly enough of the department and all that it did for me during my 2 years there. For anyone who is considering a career in coaching, understand that the game you choose to coach and the players you influence every day are the most important thing. I encourage you to arm yourselves with as much knowledge as you can to prepare and motivate the next generation of athletes!

A special thank you to all the professors who helped me get where I am today: Jessica Szymanski, David Szymanski, Rhonda Boyd, Lacey Deal, Jordan Blazo, Ben Gleason, and Smiley Reeves. You all changed my life and encouraged me to be my best every day. I can’t thank you enough for the impact you made on my life.

Note: Taylor was a member of the Lady Techster’s Basketball team and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a 4.0 GPA.

Aaron Gootzeit, DC, MS, CSCS 
Louisiana Tech University – Kinesiology, Exercise and Health Promotion (2012)
Louisiana Tech University – M.S., Kinesiology, Sports Performance (2014)
Palmer University- Doctor of Chiropractic (2021)

There have been many twists and turns throughout my education and professional career that have somehow brought me to an amazing point in my life. Currently I am a Chiropractor that specializes in rehabilitation and performance. My patients range from Little League Baseball players with overuse shoulder injuries to high performing athletes preparing for their upcoming season or to come back from an injury to 81 year olds who do not want to stop exercising and being active. I love my career choice not only for the people I get to work with but also because it is in line with a journey I set out on many years ago and allows me to use almost all of the skills I have acquired along the way. 

I grew up in New York City, and like most people in that area I had no idea where Louisiana Tech was or that it even existed. In 2008 I transferred to Tech and had absolutely no idea where I was going or how I was going to get there. I was already a kinesiology student at my past school and decided I should stick to the major. That’s when I took my first Dr. Szymanski class and got absolutely shaken up, motivated, and intrigued. The wake up call that was “Exercise Physiology”, propelled me down a path of growth and self development. During this time of growth and development, I picked up 2 passions: personal training/helping others achieve goals and Rugby (shout out to Tech Rugby).

Fast forward to one of my last quarters as an undergrad student, I was making my schedule and realized I only had “one more Doc class” left and it was “Strength and Conditioning ”.  It sounded interesting and I was pretty excited to learn. This class changed my life and inspired me to continue my education in the graduate program in the Kinesiology Department pursuing a Masters in Kinesiology and Sport Performance. This would be my first step to becoming a strength and conditioning coach in professional rugby. 

During grad school I continued to play rugby and was able to help rebuild the Tech Rugby program and even win a league championship! Outside of that I was the Graduate Assistant for Health and Wellness at the Lambright Center. I took on responsibilities as a personal trainer, staff supervisor, program coordinator, and group fitness instructor just to name a few of the hats I wore in that role. I was also afforded the opportunity to work with Doc as a strength and conditioning assistant with the Louisiana Tech Baseball team for a season.  This gave me my first experience in the role of a strength and conditioning coach. 

During my graduate studies I was fortunate enough to earn a summer internship at the Tiger Rugby Academy which was a USA Rugby Olympic Development Academy for the 2016 olympic cycle. That summer was amazing! I made some lifelong friends, learned a ton from a couple of amazing mentors, and got my first taste of what constantly being on the road and full time training looked like!  I was hooked! At the end of the summer following graduation I was offered the opportunity for full time employment.  The money offered was not great at all, but I was in the game and that was really all I wanted, so I took it! 

While working at Tiger I was given the opportunity to travel all over the country and work with some amazing athletes, a couple who competed in the olympics and went on to unbelievable international careers or domestic professional careers. The thing about training for rugby full time is that there is never really any off season; especially for the players that are on the rise or trying to get noticed through the club system. The average competitive rugby player in the US will play from February or March (depending on region) to November, not to mention you travel all over the country for the top competitions. This grueling schedule made programming very difficult at times due partly to time but also due to the constant threat of injury and player fatigue. 

Dr. Szymanski has what he calls the “strength coach elevator speech”, it is “A strength coach’s job is to keep the athletes healthy, strong, powerful, and on the field”. Words to live by. They circulate in my head and help guide my programming to this day whether it’s for an 81 year old or for a 23 year old trying out for a professional contract. 

When I was working with these athletes we would generally only get 2 – 3 weeks max 3 – 4 times a year to actually hit the gym hard with the athletes, the rest of the time we were working to prevent injuries and recover from competition while not losing strength and power. As time went on I learned that it did not take as much to maintain the strength and power of this caliber of athlete as it did to keep them healthy and on the field. I dove down a rabbit hole of rehab, prehab, and recovery techniques to use with the athletes at the academy. 

As time went on like all things, my time in Columbus, OH came to a close. As part of Tiger Rugby Academy I signed a contract with the Clemson University Rugby Club to be their full time strength and conditioning coach as well as an assistant rugby coach. This was another great year of coaching great athletes, traveling, and great rugby! As the year came to a close my contract with Clemson was ending and the coach who brought me on was resigning. Time to figure out the next step! I had a three options: continue with Tiger Rugby and hope for the best, take a job at a chain strength and conditioning facility, or go back to school. 

The last trip I took with the Clemson Rugby Club was to the Collegiate Rugby Championship in Philadelphia, PA which is the biggest college rugby tournament in the country and is televised nationally. At the tournament Palmer College of Chiropractic was recruiting postgraduate rugby players to play for their rugby club and pursue a Doctor of Chiropractic degree. After some internal debates and phone calls I applied for Palmer, got in, and started classes all within about a 6 week period. 

When I went to Palmer I was on a mission to learn as much as I could about rehab and get back to sports. When I became eligible about halfway through my schooling I applied to be an intern in the rehab department. I loved it! I was learning all the cool things and getting the opportunity to incorporate what I learned up to that point. I ended up spending almost all of my free time during the day there. At that point I was confident that I was going to use exercise and chiropractic modalities to keep people healthy, strong, powerful, and on the field. 

When I started filling out applications I realized the world had a different plan. Of the “dream jobs” I found- some I never heard from after sending my resume, some I needed more experience as a chiropractor, and others I did not feel comfortable accepting once I had insight. This led me to taking a job at a family practice that did 5 to 10 minute appointments, with no time or space for exercise. After a while at this practice and instances of patients not getting the results I thought they deserved due to the restraints of the practices model, I left.  I started my own practice in a facility that specializes in training young athletes. 

Currently I am able to offer 1 hour appointments that include chiropractic care including adjustments and soft tissue work as well as time in the gym 1 on 1 doing exercises geared at recovering from injury, preventing injury, and improving performance. I truly enjoy waking up everyday and going to my office. I am truly excited to see where the rest of my career takes me. 

I want to finish by saying that although I happened to come across Tech by chance, I truly believe being there was one of the most important parts of my life. I started as a child without direction and finished with all the tools to chase my most wild dreams. The teachers challenged me to become the best version of myself, they held me to a high standard, they showed me unwavering support, built up my confidence, and they instilled values and lessons that I still carry with me today. There is no way I would be able to have taken the chances and leaps of faith I have taken without the lessons I was taught during my time as a student in the Louisiana Tech Kinesiology Department. 

• Postscript: 

I love that I am back to working with athletes and active people in a gym setting.  I am planning to once again get involved with high level rugby in the future. I was told that this was not possible. I would have never tried to make it possible if it weren’t for the lessons I learned at Tech including a statement I heard on my first day of the grad program, “get comfortable with being uncomfortable”. 

Kaila Manshack, D.C.
Louisiana Tech University- Clinical Kinesiology 2015
Parker University – Doctor of Chiropractic 2019

Introduction:
Choosing a major in college is a crucial decision that can shape our future careers. I am passionate about exercise science, body mechanics, and a holistic approach to healthcare, so pursuing a degree in Kinesiology was an excellent choice. Clinical Kinesiology was a great undergraduate degree for me because of its relevance to exercise science and the human body. By studying Kinesiology, I was able to gain a deep understanding of anatomy, physiology, and biomechanics.

When I was a student at Louisiana Tech I knew Kinesiology would be a great option for me to be able to go into the healthcare field. I’m so thankful for the professors in the Kinesiology department help me become who I am today.

After graduating from Louisiana Tech in 2015 I went on to receive my doctorate in chiropractic at Parker University in 2019 and am currently
working in Shreveport, Louisiana at ND Wellness. Chiropractic is an incredibly beneficial health profession that many people do not understand. We believe that everyone has the right to good health. Through chiropractic, we can help patients get back to health by approaching spinal health from a holistic perspective. At its core, chiropractic seeks to free up the nervous system by ensuring that each vertebra in the spine is upright and properly aligned with the next. This helps avoid any possible encroachment on nerves whereby information flow between your brain and body
might be skewed or restricted. An optimal functioning spinal cord is essential for health. Some benefits of chiropractic is improving your
overall health, pain relief, improved posture, coordination, flexibility, circulation, and immune system. I am also able to provide nutritional counseling to patients to assess nutritional needs and create personalized nutritional plans.

Choosing Clinical Kinesiology was a great foundation in learning exercise science as well as body mechanics and makes an excellent for pursuing a career in chiropractic. By studying Kinesiology I was well prepared when starting chiropractic school. I’m so thankful for the time I spent at Louisiana Tech.

Tyler Griggers, Louisiana Tech Kinesiology – B.S. Kinesiology & Health Sciences – Class of 2019

I’m a former Track and Field athlete who competed in the men’s javelin throw. I originally started out in Engineering for a year before switching majors. During my first year with the engineering department, I didn’t feel like I fit in with the crowd, never got to know any of the professors, and honestly just didn’t enjoy that field of study. I made the switch my sophomore year into a field that I naturally was curious about. Kinesiology, to sum it up, is the study of how the body moves. Being an athlete, I wanted to be the best I could be. As I got further into my studies and my relationships with the faculty grew, I was able to perform independent tests on applied forces that would correlate directly into my javelin throw. I also learned about nutrition, and nutrient timing which fueled my body to preform instead of cramp as I recall one quarter having terrible body cramps. After taking everything I was learning and applying it to my training, I eventually qualified for the Division 1 NCAA’s regionals and competed against the best in the country. Now that you know about my past, let’s talk about the present.

At the time I’m writing this, it’s the end of year 2023 and I reside in Jacksonville, Florida with my beautiful fiancé and two dogs. I work full time for a medical device company called Stryker and have been with them for four years now. More specifically, I am a part of the Trauma and Extremities division. Basically, my job is to provide orthopedic surgeons with the hardware they need to correct broken bones. My job includes standing in on surgeries daily and assisting on fracture reduction, while being an expert on the product that is being used to provide any useful tips or answer questions. I’m able to use my degree daily due to my knowledge of anatomy and how these different forces (muscles) will pull on the bone at their attachment points thus misaligning the fracture. I’ve done it all, from the broken finger, to the 2 am poly trauma who got in a car wreck and broke everything they could. There is a wide variety of the day-to-day surgeries, so no day is ever the same redundant process.

Stryker is also such a large company that they have 18 divisions, across over 75 countries, employing over 51 thousand employees. Something we started doing in the recent years are summer internships. If you are a junior going into your final year, you are eligible to apply for this 3 month long paid internship with us, and you might end up in a cool place like Florida with me.

Dee Fleming, B.S. Louisiana Tech University Kinesiology and Health Sciences

Throughout my time at Louisiana Tech and the Kinesiology Department, I was always supported by my instructors and felt at home. The courses provided in Kinesiology prepared me for so much more than I could ever imagine. During my time in college, I had the opportunity to volunteer and participate in the Rock Steady Boxing classes provided for patients with Parkinson’s Disease. Fast forward to today, and partnering with Rock Steady Boxing and Parkinson’ssupport groups is one of my favorite roles of my current career.

I am currently a Business Development/Therapy Awareness Manager for Boston Scientific Deep Brain Stimulation. Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is an amazing therapy provided to improve the motor symptoms caused by Parkinson’s Disease and Essential Tremor. This is achieved by performing a minimally invasive surgical procedure in the brain, where the patient is awake, so we can monitor symptoms and brain activity during the operation. During this procedure, the patient will be implanted with leads and a battery to power the electrical stimulation that will be providing the therapy. The ultimate goal is to help those diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and Essential Tremor, receive their quality of life back.

There are a few components involved in the process of DBS. The first step of DBS is the Stage 1 procedure, which involves the neurosurgeon placing leads into the specific structures in the brain that can provide the best therapy and decrease of symptoms for the patient. With these structures being so small and there being several other structures in the brain we want to avoid, the procedure is done in millimeter increments. As mentioned before, this step involves testing during the procedure, by one of us connecting our clinical programmer (Microsoft tablet), to the microelectrodes or leads and increasing amplitude of electrical stimulation. During this process, the patient is awake while we monitor tremor, rigidity (stiffness), and bradykinesia (slow movements). Every testing method may be different as we ask them to perform several movements or actions, such as drawing spirals on a piece of paper before and after we turn on stimulation. There are several videos available on the internet that show musicians being given an instrument to play during the procedure, such as a violin, which was very difficult to do after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s or Essential Tremor. While decreasing motor symptoms are our goal, we also focus on not applying stimulation to structures that may cause unwanted side effects; this is where our Image Guided Programming software is very helpful and accurate. Once the leads are where they need to be and therapy has great results, the incisions are closed, and the patient is given time to recover in the facility before returning home. This gives the patient and brain an opportunity to rest and heal before the next procedure.

In the next step, this is a procedure that consists of surgically placing the battery into a small pocket inside of the chest and connecting it to the leads and its extensions. While there are several differences, the placement is similar to a pacemaker. One difference I always like to point out, are our batteries are MRI conditional, which means the patient still has the ability to get MRI scans and imaging. Once everything is connected, we test the battery and leads to make sure that there are no connectivity issues or impendences before we conclude the procedure. The patient is normally sent home the same day to rest and heal. The next time we see them, will be at their neurologist’s clinic for the initial programming, where we turn the system and stimulation on.

My very first initial programming humbled me. There are a lot of things that we take for granted, whether it’s being able to pick up a fork and eat, pour and drink our coffee, scroll through our phones, play with loved ones, and etc. Working in this field has made me so much more appreciative, but also so happy for those who decided to follow through with DBS. The initial programming can be very emotional sometimes as patients are able to do things, they weren’t able to do for some time. During my first initial programming I saw, the patient was given a cup and asked to imagine water was in it, and to raise to her mouth for a drink. It was honestly heartbreaking to see that she couldn’t raise the cup to her mouth or drink without a significant amount of tremor. She also stated that often, most of the drink ends up on her clothes. We turned on stimulation, monitoring her as we increased amplitude. We gave her the cup again and asked her to imagine she was taking a drink. At this exact moment, I remember getting chill bumps and seeing her husband beside her in disbelief, as she was able to drink with no tremor or issues at all. Seeing the tears flow, seeing the rejoice, makes me love my job and what I do. Coming from an emergency medicine and law enforcement background prior to medical device, purpose was always something I wanted to seek in my next career. I’ve found just that. I get to work with a phenomenal company and team. I get to partner with motivated neurologists and neurosurgeons who are looking to improve the care available for patients. I get to serve some amazing people.

So thank you Louisiana Tech Kinesiology for preparing me for these moments and giving me the knowledge and experience needed. Thank you for always motivating and believing in me.