SportsSeptember 3, 2015
SEMO football preview: Staff analyzed plethora of injuries to devise plan to strengthen, protect players this season
"We made an emphasis starting this past January of staying healthy, and it's showed off," coach Tom Matukewicz said.
Tom Matukewicz stood with his players kneeling on the turf in front of him at Houck Stadium following a Southeast Missouri State football preseason scrimmage.
After reiterating to them what they'd done well along with what he was displeased with about their performances, he brought their attention to a couple groups of people that he believes are critical to the Redhawks' success.
Matukewicz gave credit to Southeast's athletic trainers and strength and conditioning staff for keeping his team healthy throughout the entire offseason and into the preseason and prompted the players to give them a round of applause.
"We made an emphasis starting this past January of staying healthy, and it's showed off," Matukewicz said. "We've been really healthy, and that comes down to our strength and conditioning and our training staff has done an outstanding job."
Each week of the 2014 season, Matukewicz's first as a head coach and at Southeast, saw a different player, or players, sidelined with injuries.
Some were caused by the regular wear and tear of a typical season, others were fluke accidents and some were preventable.
A few players were able to return after missing short periods of time to heal, but several injuries required season-ending surgery.
Shortly after the Redhawks' 5-7 season wrapped up on Nov. 22, Matukewicz's plan to keep his players on the field next season was set in motion.
It all began in January when Matukewicz, head athletic trainer Ben Fox, strength and conditioning graduate assistant Justin Guy and team doctor Dr. Jimmy Bowen met to analyze the team's injuries and figure out what should be changed for this year.
The group took a look at each injury in close detail -- where it happened, when it happened and what was going on around the player as the injury was sustained -- even watching the film from practices and games where injuries occurred in hopes of figuring out how some of them could be prevented.
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"We were able to see what happened with the knee injuries and saw that when a lot of our knee injuries occurred here at practice it was because guys were on the ground quite a bit, so that's why Coach Tuke yells at them, 'Stay off the ground,'" Fox said. "That's why you're hearing that at practice all the time -- stay up, stay up -- because whenever our guys are on the ground rolling around people get their knees taken out and things like that occur."
Nose tackle Marlon Hampton sustained a knee injury during a practice at Houck late in the season.
Fox said that many of the injuries occurred when the team was practicing or playing on the turf rather than the grass field at the Rosengarten Athletic Complex. For that reason the majority of the team's spring practices were held at Rosengarten.
"That was one big thing that we saw with that. A kid plants and twists on the turf they're stuck in there," Fox said. "With grass it takes up a huge divot and everything's fine."
All of the offensive and defensive linemen will wear new knee braces this year as well as wear shoes better equipped to withstand more weight rather than having the same ones that skill position players with smaller frames wear.
Defensive linemen Jon Slania and Selwyn Carroll each missed time with foot fractures as well as wide receiver Paul McRoberts.
"That's tough for us, especially as a line you get in a rhythm with other guys because most of the things you do you rely on someone else, so when one guy goes down the timing and all that's all different," Slania said.
Some skill players, like McRoberts, still had to have their shoes altered.
"One thing is we did a big study at the end of the year and found out our shoes need to be reinforced," Matukewicz said. "All these kids want the littlest shoes they can find. Well, they make those skill shoes for normal Peter Lloyd, not for Paul McRoberts. So we bought some carbon-fiber inserts to all those shoes to kind of beef them up and so hopefully that translates into not near as [many] injuries on the field."
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Linebacker Terrance Hill missed the final two games of the season with a concussion. He, fullback Zach Cox and quarterback transfer Tay Bender, who also have been diagnosed with concussions in the past, will wear a wireless system that will help Fox monitor concussion symptoms.
Those three will wear a liner in their helmet that has a wireless transmitter that can monitor contact and will send an alert to a handheld device that Fox has on the sidelines showing him that they need to be taken through a concussion protocol.
The players will wear Riddell SpeedFlex helmets that has, "a little bit of almost a crumple zone in the top of the helmet that allows it to move," according to Fox.
In addition to different equipment and on-field changes, adjustments have been made in the weight room to improve the players' health.
Guy, who joined the Southeast strength and conditioning staff in January and is in charge of the football team, has focused his preventative measures on the shoulders and knees and does so by strengthening underdeveloped muscles near those.
"There's really no secret with what's going on," Guy said. "I mean, just trying to get the volume on the hamstrings and strength of the hamstrings because that's going to take some of the blunt force off the ACL, which is a huge issue for a lot of athletes in general. Those are one of the things that are underdeveloped. The same with rotator cuff. We're pre-habbing the rotator cuff so that it doesn't get injured, which is going to help strengthen the labrum or help prevent injuries on the labrum and shoulders and stuff like that so a lot of lats, a lot of rotator development, scapula, that will help prevent a lot of those shoulder-related injuries."
Chad Meredith, a linebacker, tore his labrum during Southeast's upset victory over nationally-ranked Southeastern Louisiana in the fourth game of the season. He had surgery in the offseason and has since recovered with help from the athletic trainers and is expected to start for the Redhawks.
"It was pretty tough because the SELA game was the last game I played and that was the best game I had, so I felt like I was kind of hitting my stride," Meredith said, "and then hearing that news and having to come back and watch the team, it's sad to watch your team and not be able to help."
Meredith said there are specific shoulder exercises the team does before doing any heavy lifting in addition to exercises to strengthen the rotator cuffs and neck exercises to prevent concussions.
Guy and the strength and conditioning staff also have helped players that were out for extended periods of time due to surgery get back up to the speed and strength they were prior to their injury.
Linebacker Roper Garrett, who broke his leg during the team's loss to Eastern Kentucky on Oct. 25, had to work on rebuilding the strength lost in his injured leg after rehabbing with the athletic training staff.
"You just have to come in and do extra sets of squats and lunges -- everything you don't want to do, but you have to do extra of just so I could build back the muscle back in the leg," Garrett said.
Garrett said having someone like Guy pushing him and his teammates makes it a little easier, though.
"He's a small guy, but he's something else," Garrett said with a laugh. "He's full of energy. He'll get right in your face. You'll be doing squat, bench, and he'll be smacking you, getting you ready, yelling at you. He's definitely what you need in a strength coach."
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Guy, who received his bachelor's degree in exercise science from Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania in 2013, was a strength and conditioning intern at Coastal Carolina and Missouri prior to joining Southeast's staff.
He tries to make the time the players spend in the weight room lively so that they'll put more into and get more out of it.
"I mean, anyone can write a program, and if you start lifting, you're going to get stronger," Guy said. "My whole deal is to create an environment that is contagious for people to work harder. You know, create that competition. You walk into the weight room and half the time you can't hear anything. I can't hear myself yell. That's contagious. Guys know where they need to be, they know what they need to do."
The Redhawks enter the season with no significant injuries to key players that occurred on the football field.
"Obviously the guys are going to get banged up and there's always those freak accidents, but as of right now, knock on wood, there's no major concerns with any injuries," Guy said. "The guys have been putting a lot of work in. They think I've been running them into the ground, but that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm actually trying to put an athlete on the field that can perform at its best."
Fox, who took over as the head athletic trainer last year, is optimistic about the progress made to restore and maintain the football players' health throughout this season.
"Hopefully we'll see a huge improvement this year," Fox said. "That's the role we take on. I've embraced it, trying to make all the changes and doing what's best for the kids. That's what it comes down to is us taking care of the kids."
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