Noel Kruse and Eric Khondaker traveled different roads that led both to earn master’s degrees in Marquette’s Athletic Training program. Each graduated from the program with the same mission: to come back and work at their alma mater someday.
“I basically said, ‘Hey, I’m a local kid. I want to be in DI athletics. If there’s ever an opening, here’s my number,’” recalls Kruse, H Sci ’22, Grad ’23. “They said, ‘We’d love to have you back, but go get some experience first.’”
For Kruse, that meant a summer internship with the New Orleans Saints followed by a fall internship with the football team at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Khondaker, Grad ’22, left, too, but stayed closer to home, working with athletics teams at Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin.
Then, Marquette called. Kruse had been all set to accept a new job at Southern Methodist University. Khondaker was heading into year two at Beloit, serving athletes in their Division III program.
“I got that phone call and said, ‘Where do I sign?’” says Khondaker, hired as an athletic trainer for Marquette’s men’s soccer and women’s tennis teams. “I was 100 percent ‘in,’ not only to come back to the university where I graduated, but also to give back to the master’s program.”
“They understand the academic rigor and the time management you must have with your clinicals and courses at the same time. They’ve already been very good mentors to the students.”
Keith Owsley, director of clinical education
“My five-year goal turned into kind of my eight-month goal,” shares Kruse, hired as an athletic trainer for Marquette’s women’s soccer and men’s tennis. “It ended up being a quicker transition than we thought it would be.”
From master’s students to preceptors
Study in Marquette’s prestigious master’s program and valuable field experience earned them their ticket back to campus as young professionals at the sought-after Division I level.
Now they help current athletic training students forge their pathways in the field by hosting them for clinical experiences. “Eric and Noel have gone from being students in the program to being preceptors for the program, and that’s pretty cool,” says Keith Owsley, director of clinical education for the Athletic Training program, who mentored both. “They understand the academic rigor and the time management you must have with your clinicals and courses at the same time. They’ve already been very good mentors to the students.”
Marquette’s program stands out from others in that students are “in the field” working with the athletics program’s team of athletic trainers from their first semester onward. Owsley reports that some programs do education and hands-on experience in blocks, frontloading class and lab work in the early years and then putting students in the field in later years.
Not Marquette.
“Ours is merged,” he explains. “They will see a knee evaluation in the morning, in class. Then they’ll see their preceptors doing that knee evaluation in the afternoon.”
Sports medicine experience and an athlete’s physical and mental recovery from injury
Kruse and Khondaker credit their clinical experiences, and the mentors they worked under, for preparing them to step into their current roles early in their careers.
“The Marquette program is really comprehensive on all topics,” Kruse says. She gained invaluable knowledge, both academic and real-world, from Carolyn Smith, M.D., a clinical associate professor in exercise science who’s also the team physician for Marquette women’s basketball.
“The Marquette program is really comprehensive on all [athletic training] topics.”
Noel Kruse, assistant athletic trainer
“The knowledge that she brings as a practicing sports medicine doctor is impressive,” Kruse says. “She makes it very to the point: ‘OK, this is what you’re actually going to see, what you’re actually going to use.’”
Both enjoy their frequent status as “firsts” for student-athletes. The student-athletes often see Kruse and Khondaker first when they arrive at practice, even before coaches and teammates. And they’re often the first to speak with a student-athlete when an injury occurs. Kruse talks about balancing extended care for student-athletes recovering from significant injuries such as anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, tears to the more immediate treatment needs commanded by tightness in the hip flexors or adductors. Whatever they’re doing, be it taping ankles or assessing a possible concussion, their conversations with student-athletes range far beyond treatment plans.
“It’s not just about treating the injury; it’s about treating the person,” says Kruse. “That’s maybe asking, ‘Hey, what did you bake last night?’ Or ‘What did you do with your friends over the weekend?’ Asking those questions is going to make you look like more of a person, and it’s going to make you realize that this athlete you’re working with is also a person as well.”
Personalized care in the vein of cura personalis
That relationship-building pays off, Khondaker says, whenever he has to deliver the hard truth to student-athletes that an injury will keep them out of action. To ease the sense of absence these students feel, he often integrates elements of the sport they’re missing into their rehabilitation exercises. When working with soccer players, for example, “I try to incorporate a soccer ball as much as I can,” he says. “Instead of doing the single leg balance drill while tossing a tennis ball, I’ll make sure we have a soccer ball they can volley back or do headers with. Knowing their love for the sport, and wanting to take care of the whole person, I think it’s important to find opportunities to bring those factors together.”
Kruse also cites the emphasis in Marquette’s mission on cura personalis. “As an athletic trainer with a Marquette undergraduate and graduate degree, I have learned the true meaning of caring for the whole person. It means supporting a student-athlete when they struggle for the first time with a college exam. It means being a shoulder to cry on when they have a season-ending injury. It means being there for them in the darkest of times and the brightest of times,” she says.
Kruse feels fortunate to be playing such a valuable role, therapeutically and personally, at this point in her career. “I didn’t think I was going to be here so quickly,” she says. “I truly feel like this is home.”
Khondaker feels similarly. “It’s this crazy full-circle moment where I’m giving back to the program that made me,” he says.
