10:09 a.m., Nov. 26, 2008----Jon Boone's days as a certified athletic trainer for the New York Jets begin before the sun comes up, and sometimes he is still working at 11 o'clock at night. But Boone is not complaining. “I'm around Brett Favre,” he says. “He's famous, but he's really a great, down-to-earth guy.”

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Being around Favre is not the only benefit of Boone's job as a seasonal assistant athletic trainer for an NFL team. Boone is also grateful for the Jets' brand new, state-of-the-art training facility, as well as for the valuable experience he is gaining in the management of a broad range of player injuries.

The Jets are helping Boone to continue his education before he goes on to grad school next year, but it was his education at the University of Delaware that gained him entree to the NFL as an undergraduate.

Boone and four other UD student athletic trainers had internships that enabled them to work for pro teams during pre-season camps this past summer. The others are Steve Feldman, who interned with the Seattle Seahawks, Collin Francis with the San Diego Chargers, Jon Hernandez with the Carolina Panthers, and Bryce Gaines with the San Francisco 49ers. Boone is continuing his work with the Jets.

“It's truly remarkable, given that there are only 32 teams in the NFL, to have five students representing one academic institution,” Thomas Kaminski, associate professor of health and exercise sciences, says. “Our program is relatively small, but our students have done so well that word is starting to spread throughout the league. We now have teams contacting us and asking for a student every year.”

“The NFL camps are not for the faint of heart,” Kaminski continues. “Despite the glamour, they're a lot of hard work.”

After spending eight weeks with the Chargers, Francis agrees. “You have to be passionate about the career to pursue it, and you have to have compassion for the athletes to help them,” he says.

Francis worked right up until the beginning of the fall semester, returning to Delaware the night before classes started. “For the first two weeks of school, I didn't have a bed, most of my clothes were still in suitcases, and my watch was still set to Pacific Time,” he says. “But it was worth it. I learned so much about athletic training out there. I flew in at 11 in the morning on the first day of preseason, and I was in the training room at noon. They give you the responsibility to work at the highest level, and you learn to cope with it.”

“I honed my clinical skills working with the Chargers and learned a lot about rehab,” Francis continues. “But even more important, I learned to work independently and take initiative. I also learned to build relationships with the athletes, which enables me to do my job better. Knowing what makes an athlete tick helps us when we're working with them.”

For Feldman, the best part of the internship was game day. “Obviously it was only preseason,” he says, “but the players were focused, the theatrics were not spared, and the Seahawk fans were intense.”

Spending the summer with the Seahawks also helped Feldman refine his career plans. Going in, he lacked a clear picture of where he wanted to be in 10 years but then saw the job that he wanted.

“In Seattle, as with most other NFL teams,” he explains, “a rehabilitation coordinator sets the treatment, prepares the sessions, and follows through with rehabilitation. I felt that this job was probably the most exciting because the rehabilitation coordinator personally saw the athlete's return to the football field after going through an injury.”

After a high-intensity summer with the Chargers, Francis worked at Hodgson Vo-Tech High School in Newark, Del. “It's been really good for me to go from the Chargers, with a never-ending budget, to a high school, with a never-beginning budget,” he says. “The athletic trainer there has taught me a lot about low-cost techniques.”

While Kaminski is pleased that five of his students have benefitted from their experiences with NFL teams, he still has one major unmet goal--to have one of UD's female students placed with a pro football team. “The profession as a whole is leaning more towards females,” Kaminski says, “but the NFL has traditionally been male. I'm optimistic that it will happen eventually -- we're not giving up.”

Internships in the NFL can open doors for student trainers and serve as an important recruiting tool for the UD program, but Kaminski emphasizes that all of the students, not just those who intern with the NFL, gain practical experience with UD and high school teams.

“It's my job as an educator to make sure that our students have a good, well-rounded experience before they start practicing,” Kaminski says. “Working with a high school, for example, exposes them to male and female athletes playing both high- and low-risk sports. Experiential learning doesn't get any better than this.”

Article by Diane Kukich