Kevin Joyce’s interest in athletic training started back in high school, during his senior year, when he originally intended to go into physical therapy.

While playing soccer at Sacred Heart University, Joyce suffered a pretty serious injury in just his second day of practice as a freshman. He said it was his first time playing on any sort of turf.

“I came out for the ball and twisted the wrong way,” Joyce said. “My foot went one way and my knee went the other.”

Following the injury, he saw an athletic trainer to rehab the injury. During that time, he was able to see what the profession of an athletic trainer was really about. While the injury did not spark his interest in athletic training, he said his interest grew from there.

“I already had that interest to work with sports teams through physical therapy, but it steered me in the right direction,” Joyce said. “But once I saw what athletic training was … I found it was a better fit for me.”

More than 20 years since that injury, Joyce has been hired at Oswego State as the new head athletic trainer. He joins the established staff of assistant trainers, Elise Fitzsimmons, who was hired in 2012 and Dan Collins, who was hired in 2017.

While Joyce is the main trainer for women’s soccer this fall, he is responsible for supporting all 24 programs that Oswego State has at the NCAA level. 

Despite being new to the program, Joyce said the transition has gone smoothly on the administrative end of things and also working with the specific athletes. Joyce also said that Fitzsimmons and Collins were helpful in the opening weeks.

“Still only three weeks in, you’re still learning a couple faces and a couple names,” Joyce said. “It’s the, ‘Wait, you told me you were from … ’ situations.”

Fitzsimmons said that the transition has been easy on the athletes, as well.

“A lot of our kids have really taken to him really quickly, which, previously, hadn’t necessarily been the case,” Fitzsimmons said. “Really, I don’t see any issues moving forward.”

In the opening weeks of the athletics season, Joyce has already had to deal with some larger issues, both with the in-season women’s soccer team, but also the out-of-season men’s basketball team. Women’s soccer has had a couple ACL injuries and the men’s basketball team had some injuries following last season and an unexpected injury before this season during a pickup basketball game, men’s basketball head coach Jason Leone said.

“The thing that I was very appreciative of, is both Kevin and Dan being proactive, having a conversation with me that included me in both diagnosis and the decision-making process for this young man’s rehabilitation,” Leone said.

While Joyce is new to the Oswego State program, he is not new to the SUNYAC, with stops both at Plattsburgh State and SUNY New Paltz. While at Plattsburgh State, Joyce worked with women’s soccer head coach Brian McGrane while he was part of the men’s soccer team there.

“The biggest thing that I think Kevin brings is that he’s a pretty level-headed, down-to-earth guy who can joke around but also knows when it’s time to be serious,” McGrane said.

For both Leone and McGrane, the biggest thing an athletic trainer can do for their student-athletes is not only be a medical advisor, but also help with the mental and emotional side of sports. Leone said that Joyce’s personality is “comforting for him as a coach.”

“A lot of the times, their role is, quite frankly, giving [athletes] peace of mind that they’re going to be OK,” Leone said.

But for Joyce, being there for the emotional well-being of the student-athletes is “mentally huge.” As a former collegiate student-athlete, he also said he is able to draw from his own experiences to help the kids now.

“There’s so many times we can just be an ear to listen or a shoulder to cry on,” Joyce said. “A lot of the time we’re not dealing with ankles and knees. We’re dealing with life in itself.”

With Joyce’s experience at multiple colleges and in private practice with Professional Physical Therapy, he has been able to teach the rest of the sports medicine staff new techniques, especially with his physical therapy background.

“I have 13 years in the field and he’s teaching me stuff that I still haven’t used,” Fitzsimmons said. “His big thing is that he wanted to make us feel like we were all three collaborators together.”

Leone, McGrane and Fitzsimmons all said that Joyce has been a valuable addition to the sports medicine team. But, Leone made sure to highlight the integral role that all three members of the sports medicine team play in all of Oswego State’s athletics’ success.

“The trainers are invaluable to the student-athlete experience. They’re a vital part of our success,” Leone said. “We’re really lucky to have Kevin come aboard here.”

Patrick Higgins | The Oswegonian