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Virginia Tech’s Winning System Of Integrated Care

By James Panter

In making its ninth straight bowl appearance after the 2001 season, Virginia Tech’s football team further solidified its position in the upper echelon of NCAA’s Division I schools.

Guided by Head Coach Frank Beamer, the Hokies compiled an 8-3 regular season record after losing a nail-biting 26-24 decision to top-ranked Miami, and they captured a berth in the Gator Bowl to play perennial powerhouse Florida State.

In 1999, the Big East Conference champion Hokies finished at No. 2 in the Associated Press poll after compiling an 11-1 record and playing Florida State for the national title in the Sugar Bowl. The next season, they achieved a No. 6 ranking with another 11-1 record and the Gator Bowl crown.
The success of the Virginia Tech program stands as a testimony to hard work, commitment and preparation. Not only do the Hokies depend on a crafty game plan, a balanced offense, a stingy defense and solid kicking game to win, but they also rely on a comprehensive, integrated training and care model that elevates athletic performance.

"If an athlete has a back injury, more than likely he’s going to see our team doctor, trainer, chiropractor and physical therapist," says Mike Goforth, head athletic trainer at Virginia Tech. "We’re all going to come to some type of common ground in the care of the athlete, and that’s what separates our program from others."

Goforth, who implements a "think tank" strategy, utilizes the services of Blacksburg, Va., chiropractor Dr. Greg Tilley in his well-coordinated team of providers.

"A lot of times, athletic trainers either are not shown what chiropractic can do, or we are steered away from it," Goforth emphasizes. "I was a little apprehensive at first, because I wasn’t educated on what Dr. Tilley could do. But as I started to see some of the work he did on our athletes, and how he interacted with them, I really felt strongly about what he could do."

Three years ago, Tilley initially had approached Dr. Duane Lagan, the team physician, to discuss how he could assist Virginia Tech in delivering care.

"I told him I would be willing to volunteer and help in any way I could," recalls Tilley, a Life University graduate. "My approach was not to push myself on them, but for them to contact me if they had a question concerning an injury that I could help with. It was a completely new idea to them. They had never really even thought about chiropractic as being a viable option for the sports medicine department."

After Goforth and Mike Gentry, the assistant athletic director for athletic performance, saw the athletes get results from Tilley’s care, they began envisioning chiropractic as an element to include in their integrated model. Trainers, as well as Dr. Lagan, now refer athletes to the chiropractor for care.

Tilley’s background in athletic training gave him insights into Goforth’s needs.

"Not pushing myself on him was the big thing," he notes. "I just let him know that I could help and came up with ideas to make his job easier and help his athletes perform better," he says. "I know how the training room and the referral system works."

Tilley educated the trainers one-on-one by using spine models, X-rays and literature. In providing care for athletes, he uses Diversified, full spine and Thompson drop techniques and analysis protocols.

"In the beginning, there were times when I only saw one or two patients," he says. "Now, I have been allocated an office in the sports complex where I have my own portable table, and they have a schedule where the trainers can schedule times for their athletes to see me."

Tilley, a Life University graduate, sets up his table to give adjustments on Wednesdays, and also on Saturdays before football home games. On game days, he begins his work two hours prior to kickoff and adjusts approximately 15 Hokies, most of them starters, who wait in line for care.

"I have to make some adaptations because I’m adjusting 300-pound linemen," he describes. "I’ve made a couple of biomechanical adaptations so that I can be really specific with my adjustments. The most common conditions we see are sprain/strain-type injuries and low back injuries, and we see a lot of lower cervical and upper thoracic subluxations."

"In the lower back, and even the hamstring area, we see increased flexibility, as well as better range of motion through the shoulder and neck region," he continues. "So we’re seeing less muscle tightness, increased range of motion and better flexibility, which adds up to better performance."

Junior quarterback Grant Noel, who began receiving adjustments in July 2001, feels that chiropractic gives him better flexibility and range of motion. According to Tilley, he concentrates on adjusting the "arm and shoulder girdle, which relates to the mid-back" and checking the lower cervical area.

"Just getting my back adjusted and loose helps with my trunk mobility, as far as twisting and throwing," Noel says.

Senior linebacker Ben Taylor, whose outstanding play made him a candidate for the prestigious Butkus Award, has been under Tilley’s care for 1-1/2 years. Jarring collisions with powerful, fast runners make chiropractic care a weekly necessity.

"It helps me a lot because I’m stiff and I’m trying to get more mobile," he points out. "A lot of times, when you have a head-on-head collision with the fullback, it puts a lot of stress on your upper body, especially the neck, because you’re leading with your head and that gives you a jolt. Usually on Sundays, your neck is really, really stiff."

Tilley takes SOAP notes on every athlete and sends reports to Lagan and Goforth to keep them informed of the progress of care. Paid through a grant study, he not only adjusts football players, but also athletes in other sports, such as swimming and diving, lacrosse, soccer, men’s and women’s basketball, golf, tennis and cheerleading. In addition, he provides care for Blacksburg High School athletes.

"A lot of our players have asked why Dr. Tilley isn’t traveling with the team now," Goforth describes. "I’m hoping that his frequency in the training room will increase. We don’t just let anybody into our system, because we have to be very protective of our kids. But whenever we find somebody like Dr. Tilley, I’ll do whatever I can to support him and promote him. I think this is a step in the right direction. We hope it serves as a model."

Gentry, who has been at Virginia Tech for 15 years, oversees three full-time strength coaches and four graduate assistants in facilities spanning 20,000 square feet. He notes that his department’s mission statement is to help athletes "realize their physical potential in order to increase their performance on the field or court and also decrease their severity and incidence of sports-related injury."

After measuring strength, speed, weight, body fat and other factors, the staff uses a sport-specific program to devise a tailored plan for each athlete, based on individual needs.

"I see chiropractic has having two functions, from my perspective," Gentry states. "It helps our athletes return to competition faster, if they have sustained some injuries, and secondarily, it seems to be preventive, in the sense that it keeps our athletes more mobile and flexible and feeling better. The numbers of athletes that use it, want to use it or have benefited from it, has continued to grow."

Beamer, who was named the NCAA’s "Coach of the Year" in 1999, has been coaching since 1972 and has served as Virginia Tech’s since 1987. He has seen dramatic changes in the care of athletes during that time.

"Several of our kids have benefited from going to a chiropractor," he says. "They go there, and they feel better when they come out. Mike Goforth has opened it up so that we’ve got massage and all the different ways of treating. Some people probably react to it better than others, but it’s available."
Athletic Director Jim Weaver emphasizes that this approach shows the university’s concern for the well-being of its student-athletes.

"I have always been a believer in chiropractic," he says, "and I am very supportive of the integration of all facets in our total approach at Virginia Tech of the care of our student-athletes. We believe that everybody has a role to play."

Goforth, who has been at Virginia Tech since 1998, has developed a system that institutes a true team concept.

"At many schools, you have different levels of care," he points out. "You might go to the trainer, and if the trainer doesn’t get you better, you go to the team doctor. If the team doctor doesn’t get you better, you go to the orthopedic specialist. Then you might try physical therapy, or you might try chiropractic. I don’t believe it ought to be a stepped approach like that. It ought to be more of a think tank situation.

"The key is everybody knowing their role," he adds. "We have to work within a system here. If everybody is not on the same page and everybody is not supporting each other, that system will fail, and that’s the biggest obstacle to adding chiropractic care into a Division I athletic setting. It’s the trainer’s job to maintain that communication, that flow, and the more people you have involved, the harder it gets. But I have complete confidence in Dr. Tilley that he’ll communicate effectively to the athletes and myself."

Goforth supervises a "performance-based" training room, where athletes are prepared to compete at the highest level possible.

"If an athlete doesn’t believe in what we‘re doing, they’re not going to get better," he says. "We try to do everything we can to keep them 100 percent, to play or to work out to better themselves, and that’s the way I look at chiropractic.

"I don’t think you have to be injured to see Dr. Tilley, because there are some performance issues prior to a contest that he can help you with, regardless of whether you are injured or not. It’s an attitude of ‘I feel like I need a little adjustment. The adjustments make me feel better. I play better.’ I feel having chiropractic helps us win."

About the authors: James Panter is editor of Today’s Chiropractic.

© Copyright 2002 Today's Chiropractic

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