The LUC athletic training staff, save Hitch, has been let go. They'll now contract out with Novacare instead of employing a full-time team. I am guessing this is a money saving move, but could be wrong.

Trainers are critical to the various athletic teams, and a lot of 4-year athletes rely heavily on them - especially by junior and senior years. I hope the the new contracted staff can be properly vetted, or this could be bad. I spoke to one former athlete who is now a physical therapist; they commented that this is a high school move and challenged that Loyola might be the only D1 school to do this. Now, this may be an exaggeration, but I hope we're not seeing a penny wise, pound foolish move. Suppose it'll be hard to track metrics on this, but we'll see.

I think that this could be used as a negative in recruiting

I don't know the arrangement, but would completely agree. Could actually be more of a concern to parents than to the players.

Here's a page from NovaCare's website showing what college and professional sports teams they work with:

http://www.novacare.com/co-sports-affiliations.asp

They seem to be active in Chicago, working with UIC, DePaul and now Loyola.

I saw that Swella, good to hear. And I don't know what the outcome will be. I do remember the folks who have been let go as very hard working, loyal, and overall very good trainers. The type of folks that will come in on their days off to treat a sprained ankle to get an athlete ready to compete that week. I don't know if you can replicate that. Maybe so, and I hope so for the sake of the athletes.

I feel really bad for the people that lost their jobs. I sincerely wish them well in their future endeavors.

But in regards to the negative implications that this may have for recruiting or the general well being of our student athletes, I doubt that this will pose any significant issues. As Swella pointed out, Novacare has contracts with several big time college programs (Villanova and Cincinnati both stood out), as well as several major sports teams such as the Minnesota Vikings, Philadelphia Eagles and the Philadelphia 76ers. I'm not sure how this new partnership will work, but I hope that the student athletes continue to get high quality and highly personalized attention. On face, it appears that they will...

I hope you're right 12. Do wonder if Novacare had us listed on their website last year, when they were sponsoring us. Only time will tell. I'm surprised we didn't see a presser outlining the new partnership. Maybe to keep the layoffs out of the public. Know that quite a few former M and W volleyball players are very upset to see Brian go. One thing - it's got to be tough to be one of the remaining employees and watch so many colleagues gone over the past couple years.

Yea...I think that the administration feels that some things are better left unmentioned.

Also, do you know if Dave Vitel was let go as well? I hope not because he's been able to do some really good things at Loyola.