Oklahoma State University Athletics
Behind The Scenes With Rob Hunt
October 18, 2010 | Cowboy Football
Oct. 18, 2010
By Amanda Brown
OSU Media Relations
He may work behind the scenes of Oklahoma State Athletics, but he has a huge impact on the OSU student athletes.
Rob Hunt, Director of Athletic Training at OSU, is the reason why many athletes are playing today.
Hunt studied architecture at Ball State in Muncie, Ind., and he stayed there for athletic training.
“I originally went to school to study architecture but didn't really enjoy it that much, and I still had the love of competition and sports,” Hunt said. “I happened to find a good athletic training program, got into it and absolutely loved it from the time I started my classes.”
During graduate school, Hunt was an assistant athletic trainer at Missouri and worked with the track and football teams.
At OSU, a typical morning for Hunt consists of getting injury reports ready for the coaches meeting.
“Every morning, I go in and meet with our coaches all at one time to update the status and progress of all of our injured players. I let the coaches know what kind of restrictions I expect those players to have,” said Hunt, who is now in his fifth year at OSU.
After the injury reports, Hunt gets the treatments ready for the football players who come in for their morning treatments. They treat the guys until roughly 11:30 a.m.
In the afternoon, he does a few pre-practice treatments.
“We get the team ready for practice by taping and bracing,” he said.
A football practice is usually from 4 p.m. until about 6 p.m. After practice, Hunt does post-practice treatments and clean up. A typical midweek day for Hunt lasts from 6:30 a.m. until 8 p.m.
Hunt has made the transition over the past year from the old training room in Gallagher-Iba Arena to the new athletic training room in the west end zone of Boone Pickens Stadium.
“As the director of our program, I have 16 people working for me, and there has to be a lot of communication. It's harder for me to stay in touch with their injured athletes,” Hunt said.
He also enjoyed seeing the soccer players, track athletes and tennis players come in, something he does not get to do now.
“We all see each other, it's just different. I have been over here a year now, and it's better now than it was a year ago but it is certainly a different dynamic,” Hunt said.
There are positives to the new training room though. The football team has more space, and the student athletes still using the Gallagher-Iba training room feel they have more space also.
“We have pulled 130 people out of that facility in GIA, and that makes a big difference on how we manage that facility, the time, the bed space available and the exercise equipment available,” he said.
Hunt has developed special relationships with the student athletes. He loves meeting many different people with a lot of different life backgrounds. He says it is hard to see them get hurt.
“The worst part for me is when a kid overcomes a significant injury and then is injured again. Those are the hardest because you know how much they worked and invested time to heal and then they have a setback,” he said.
Overall, Hunt loves his job and wouldn't change it for anything. He has fun every day and has a great group of people to work with.
“It's a great place to work and we have a lot of fun doing what we do,” Hunt said.
