Before the United States Ski Team offered him an internship in Park City, Utah, Brendan Wall, a 2011 East Stroudsburg University graduate, had never been west of Ohio. Now that the internship has turned into his dream job, Wall will be wracking up some serious frequent flyer miles.<\/p>\n
Wall, who earned his bachelor\u2019s degree in physical education and health at East Stroudsburg University and is working on his master\u2019s in exercise science, was hired by the U.S. Men\u2019s Alpine Ski Team this fall as the strength and conditioning coach for its C and D divisions.<\/p>\n
Wall is currently helping train 12 young, elite skiers with Olympic aspirations at the team\u2019s Copper Speed Center at Copper Mountain, Colo. From there, Wall, 24, will travel with the young skiers on the NorAm and Europa Cup circuits to Switzerland, Austria, France, Vermont, Canada and finally to Slovakia for the International Ski Federation\u2019s Junior World Championships, which begin February 26, 2014.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m beyond excited,\u201d Wall said. \u201cThis is basically my dream come true. I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019m one of the youngest guys to ever be employed by the ski team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wall said his degree in physical education and health, plus his graduate work in exercise science, were keys to getting him the internship and then being offered a permanent position.<\/p>\n
\u201c(ESU) is one of the top-rated health and phys ed schools on the East Coast,\u201d Wall said. \u201c(The ski team) liked that I had the experience of student teaching, of really being a presence in front of the athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t hurt that Wall, from Warwick, N.Y., has been skiing since age 5, raced on his high school\u2019s ski racing team and taught skiing at Jack Frost Mountain in Blakeslee, Pa., while he was an ESU student.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty much everything I do revolves around snow,\u201d Wall said. \u201cSkiing is such a huge passion for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caroline Kuchinski, Ph.D., an ESU physical education professor who Wall called \u201cthe best,\u201d convinced him that for the kind of career he wanted a master\u2019s degree in, exercise science would be important.<\/p>\n
From there, Wall said he benefited from the huge depth of knowledge shared by his ESU exercise science professors Shala Davis, Ph.D., and Gavin Moir, Ph.D., who helped Wall build on his physical education background by bringing in more technical aspects.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cThey did a good job of working with me and adding in more of the science (side of things),\u201d Wall said.<\/p>\n
Davis, chairwoman of the ESU department of exercise science, said Wall\u2019s academic background, combined with his dynamic personality, work ethic and great communication skills made him an excellent choice for the highly competitive internship and job.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe teach in the graduate program that you need to play to your strengths and that\u2019s exactly what he did,\u201d Davis said. \u201cI think it goes back to the fact that he went through a one-year accelerated program where you have to sink or swim,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Wall stepped up, balancing a graduate assistantship with course work and other responsibilities while demonstrating the motivation and enthusiasm that are keys to working with elite athletes, she said.<\/p>\n
Wall started his graduate internship at the Center of Excellence in Park City, Utah, in April where he was under the supervision of Alex Moore, then the United States Ski and Snowboard Association\u2019s strength and conditioning coordinator. During Wall\u2019s stint there, Moore was lured away to be the high performance director of the NBA\u2019s Cleveland Cavaliers. That forced Wall to take more responsibility in running strength and conditioning workouts and performance testing with the young skiers, who are mostly ages 18-21.<\/p>\n
Wall works with the athletes six days a week, writing and refining their strength and conditioning programs and helping them stay motivated through grueling workouts. The team mixes in mountain biking with the weight lifting and other exercises to keep the skiers engaged.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing with ski racers is injuries,\u201d Wall said.<\/p>\n
As a result, Wall is responsible for trying to keep them injury-free. If a skier does get hurt, helping him recover is a big part of Wall\u2019s job, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re obviously trying to get the guys stronger and in better shape but at the end of the day, if they\u2019re not healthy, they\u2019re not skiing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
During his internship, Wall\u2019s skills in working with the young athletes caught the attention of Sasha Rearick, the head coach of the U.S. Men\u2019s Alpine Ski Team. When Rearick offered him the job of the C and D teams\u2019 strength and conditioning coach, Wall jumped at the chance.<\/p>\n
Wall had completed most of his course work for his ESU Master of Science degree and plans to finish within the next year.<\/p>\n
Although Wall said it will be tough to be away from his girlfriend, Lauren Howerter, who graduated from ESU in 2012 as a health and physical education major and lives in Utah, he is excited about the prospect of traveling to France, Austria, Switzerland and other countries where his athletes will be training and racing.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve been on more planes,\u201d Wall said, \u201cin the last eight months than I had been on in my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ESU graduate Brenda Wall, now the U.S. Men\u2019s Alpine Ski Team this fall as the strength and conditioning coach for its C and D divisions, is currently helping train 12 young, elite skiers with Olympic aspirations at the team\u2019s Copper Speed Center at Copper Mountain, Colo. From there, Wall, 24, will travel with the young skiers on the NorAm and Europa Cup circuits to Switzerland, Austria, France, Vermont, Canada and finally to Slovakia for the International Ski Federation\u2019s Junior World Championships, which begin February 26, 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,5,20,21,48,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-athletic-training","category-esu-success-stories","category-exercise-science","category-physical-education-teacher-education","category-slider"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7680"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7695,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7680\/revisions\/7695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/backup_insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}