March 25, 2018
Editor's note: Building highly successful athletics programs requires many facets. In this "Auburn Builds Champions" series, we will profile eight Auburn Athletics coaches and support staff members and their keys to success. In part six, Director of Sports Medicine Joe-Joe Petrone discusses why having a servant's heart is integral to what he and his staff do on a daily basis.
By Greg Ostendorf
AuburnTigers.com
AUBURN, Ala. -- Last month, the Alabama swimming and diving team was practicing in the James E. Martin Aquatics Center, preparing for the Auburn Invitational the next day. One swimmer dove in and didn't see his teammate making the turn at the blocks. They collided. One dislocated his shoulder while the other suffered a spinal contusion.
Alabama had only a graduate assistant athletic trainer on hand at the time, so three members of Auburn's staff jumped into action. They spine boarded the athlete with a spinal contusion, allowing paramedics to come and take him to Columbus.
The other athlete went to East Alabama Medical Center where Nate Warner, the head trainer for Auburn swimming and diving, drove over to check on him.
Dr. Michael Goodlett, Auburn's head doctor for all sports, went and checked on both athletes.
"Before you know it, I got a call from Jeff Allen over at Alabama, the head athletic trainer for football and Director of Sports Medicine," said Joe-Joe Petrone, Auburn's Director of Sports Medicine. "And he goes, `Well, throw the colors out the window. You all are just incredible.' I said, `You all would do the same for us, and you have.'
"It's one big family. The colors go out the window when somebody's hurt, and it's incredible in the SEC how that happens."
A servant's heart
As Auburn's Director of Sports Medicine, Petrone oversees the athletic trainers, team psychologists, sports dietitians and others. He also works with the doctors and physicians. It's a way to bring everybody under the same umbrella.
"My primary role is the health and well-being of our student-athletes," Petrone said.
That role might include taking over temporarily as the sports administrator for equestrian or filling in for the head athletic trainer with the women's golf team because she's busy working the SEC Tournament with women's basketball. Petrone has also filled in when one of his trainers got married and went on their honeymoon. He's filled in at practice when one of his trainers was at the hospital with an athlete undergoing surgery.
It's about being there, always willing to help. It's about having a servant's heart -- something Petrone learned from his father while growing up.
"There were days where my dad would be off and somebody would call and say, `Mike, I need something,'" Petrone said. "`He'd go down to his work, open it up and take it to them. That's where when we have a kid that's in dire need of help, I don't push him off on anybody else.
"Our motto as a staff is -- we take care of kids, but the thing is I don't want to ever tell anybody no. I don't want to hear, `It's not my job.' I hate that. If you're at an event and something needs to be done and you're not busy, what's the big deal? Even if it's not your lane or your title, you do it. And people see that. They just want to know that somebody is going to have their back.
"I don't want to use the word leader. I think if everybody's on the same page, we are the leader."
So regardless of what's going on at the time, Petrone is always willing to spring into action when called upon. In fact, he says he's worked at least a practice for every sport since he began at Auburn in 2002. His staff is the same way.
"First of all, I'm here for the program," head baseball trainer Anthony Sandersen said. "I'm here for the athletic department, the university and in particular, the baseball team. Whatever I can do to help, whether that's bringing a guy back from surgery or just keeping a guy on the field who's got some nagging things, I'm just trying to be here at all times. Just trying to be available whenever they need anything.
"And that's what I tell them. My phone is always on. I always have it with me. I'm always a phone call away. To me, it's just being available at all times and never denying them of anything they need. Whatever the answer is, it's probably never going to be no."
Always willing. Always serving.
`That goes back to family'
Under the direction of Petrone, the sports medicine group at Auburn has become a family. Sandersen is the perfect example.
The former Major League Baseball trainer came to Auburn in 2010 where he spent the next five seasons working for the Tigers. He left for North Carolina State in 2015 for a similar position that offered more administrative responsibilities. It was a better move for his career.
However, two years later, when the head baseball trainer position at Auburn opened back up, Petrone called Sandersen and asked what it would take to get him back? It didn't take much. He has a new title and new responsibilities in addition to serving the baseball team, but just returning to Auburn and working with Petrone and his staff again was appealing on its own.
It was the same way with head soccer trainer Melanie Lynn. She left Auburn for Ole Miss to be closer with her grandmother, who was ill at the time, but after her grandmother passed, she eventually returned to Auburn.
"Part of it is working for Joe-Joe and the fact that I know he would always support the decisions that I make," Lynn said. "He supported me going to Ole Miss and understanding that I was doing that for my family and to be there with my family. Then the opportunity arose for me to come back and I could at that point, and so he had me back.
"That right there shows me that he cares about me not just as an employee but as a human being and as a person. That's huge to have a boss that will care about you and will want you also to further your career."
"That goes back to the word family," Petrone said.
Petrone experienced that same type of compassion when he first started at Auburn.
The former Director of Sports Medicine at Middle Tennessee State traveled back-and-forth to Nashville for 16 straight weeks to see his son play football. Meredith Jenkins, who oversees Petrone and his team, would knock on his door Thursday afternoon and tell him to get on the road before it got too late. Petrone didn't ask to leave until Friday morning.
That year, his son's team won a state championship. And he got to see every moment of it despite living six hours away.
"It's been easy for me to transition here," Petrone said. "Meredith cares about the athletes, leads by example. We have a regional in softball and it rains, she's up there wiping seats down. She's the senior women's athletic director, well-respected in the community of athletic directors, a go-to person who never tells you no and always wants to help you."
Staying ahead of the curve
When Petrone first arrived at Auburn, there was no medical school like a lot of universities have. The only hospital was East Alabama Medical Center. That all changed in 2015 when the doors opened for the first time at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine or VCOM as it's commonly referred to around campus. It was a game-changer for Petrone and his staff.
For starters, it allowed Auburn to have extra physicians that could cover practices or sporting events. Before it was Dr. Goodlett running around from event to event, but now you'll see Dr. Jos Edison and Dr. Siraj Abdullah filling in for him.
"A lot of schools will do a survey, `What sports do you cover with a physician on site at the game?' It was easy for me," Petrone said. "I just put `All.' We're proud of that. We want to be there."
It also opened the door to so many new possibilities with the cutting-edge technology that was taking place at VCOM.
They were able to study concussions better. Goodlett and VCOM now do blood draws and MRIs to see if there are biomarkers in the blood that happen when you have a concussion that allows you to see what the brain's doing post-concussion. Goodlett is also working with VCOM, the engineering department and former softball player Kasey Cooper on ACL research.
The school has force plates where you can analyze movement and the amount of pressure a person applies to jump or to run or to explode.
"There are just so many things that can be brought to the table by having VCOM on campus," Petrone said. "It helps us give a higher level of care for our student-athletes -- after we find out some of these new things that are out there on the horizon -- that we wouldn't be able to do if they weren't here.
"We probably could do it, but could we do it as well as they allow us to do it? To have the tools, to have somebody that does analytics over there that can process the data to assist us -- it opens a lot of doors."
At the end of the day, parents can feel better about their kids playing sports at Auburn because of Petrone, his staff and their relationship with VCOM.
Greg Ostendorf is a Senior Writer for AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: Follow @greg_ostendorf