Kyle Wilson, Director of Athletic Training

Providing the best possible preventative and rehabilitative care, the UNLV football athletic training staff is headed by Director of Athletic Training Kyle Wilson.

A 1982 graduate of West Virginia University with a bachelor’s in secondary education, Wilson earned his master’s in education in 1984 from Nicholls State University where he was a graduate assistant athletic trainer. He spent two years assisting with football and overseeing the Fighting Colonels’ men’s basketball program.

Wilson moved to Las Vegas in 1984 and begins his 16th year on staff this fall. From 1984-90 he was assistant athletic trainer for football and men’s basketball while serving as head athletic trainer for the Hustlin’ Rebel baseball team. He became head football athletic trainer in 1990 and was named head athletic trainer in July 1997 and director of athletic training this past summer.

Wilson, a certified member of the National Athletic Trainers Association since 1982, has spent four summers working at the NFL’s Buffalo Bills training camp held at Fredonia State College in New York. He is past president of the Nevada ATA and once served on the managing board of the Far West ATA, which presented Wilson the Distinguished Service Award in 1997. In 1994-95, he was Chairman of the NATA National Convention Committee. He currently serves on the board of directors for the NATA Research & Education Foundation. Since 1984 he has taught undergraduate classes in UNLV’s athletic training curriculum in the College of Health Science. A native of Parkersburg, West Va., Wilson is single.

Wilson is assisted on the day-to-day operations throughout the football season by graduate assistants and ATCs Zachary Smith, a graduate of Boise State, and Sam Johnson, a TCU graduate, along with 10 student assistants.

In addition to the athletic training staff, the Rebels have the services of some of the finest medical doctors in the community: Dr. Gregory Bigler, Dr. Gerald Higgins, Dr. Gary Marrone and Dr. Vern Prochaska, team physicians and orthopedists; Dr. James Callaway, dentist; Dr. Craig Hamilton and Dr. Keith Kohorst, optometrists; Dr. Daniel Orr, maxillofacial; Dr. Albert Capanna and Dr. Benjamin H. Venger, neurosurgeons, and Dr. Rick Lippman, general physician.

”We have a top staff of team physicians,” says Wilson. ”They stop by after practice to perform evaluations on recent injuries and follow up treatment during rehabilitation. This is good for the athletes, because it is constant care provided for them. In addition, it is a great educational experience for our student-trainers because they see diagnosis and evaluations first-hand.”

Day-to-day preventative medicine was made easier with the opening of the Marilyn and Si Redd Sports Medicine Complex. The state-of-the-art operation is a major part of the $8.5 million Lied Athletic facility, which opened in August of 1996.

Made possible by a generous gift of $1.5 million by Marilyn and Si Redd, the athletic training facility incorporates the total scope of sports medicine over an 8,500-square-foot area.

Aside from five staff offices, a rehabilitation room houses a dozen pieces of equipment including Cybex, stationary bicycles, stairs machines and treadmills, all under a natural skylight.

The largest area features a dozen tables to offer student-athletes various treatments throughout the day. Taping, padding and bracing all take place in another all-inclusive room.

Finally, an aquatic therapy room features three above-ground whirlpools surrounding a 10-feet deep pool for rehabilitative exercises.

All of these features make it possible for UNLV student-athletes to rehabilitate injuries without ever needing to leave the Lied Athletic Complex.

Other amenities include a physician’s office and exam room to provide daily medical service for student-athletes. A drug-testing facility also is part of the new complex. This expedites medical care because the student-athletes health care is self-contained.

Also, UNLV’s academic program and its student athletic trainers benefit from a sports medicine library, study room and conference facility.

”Aside from being four times larger than our former facility,” says Wilson. ”This is one of the top complexes in the nation because of the versatility it offers to service student-athletes in every area of sports medicine. We’re now more efficient, more accessible and more effective in preventing and rehabilitating athletic injuries.”