Keeping Cool(e) — By Chris Cooper As head athletic trainer, Gordon Coole (shown here with Idris McClain '03) says his goal is to teach students how to "listen to their bodies and learn how to take care of them."

The most difficult thing is to tell a kid he or she can't play," says Head Athletic Trainer Gordon Coole. "It's devastating to an athlete when they can't play."

Now in his 16th year as head athletic trainer at Exeter, Coole has seen all types of athletic injuries, from the gruesome to the mundane. But he always tries to put them in perspective for students. "I want them to leave here and know how to listen to their bodies and know how to take care of themselves," he says. "We want them to understand what we're doing and why."

Coole cites an example from this past football season. "One of the players pulled a hamstring in practice a couple of days before the game. I knew right away he couldn't play that week. But I didn't tell him that." After a few days of treatment and stretching, Coole allowed the player to dress for the game. After the first few minutes of warm-ups, he came off the field and told Coole he couldn't play. "I allowed him to make the decision. It's part of the educational process. The downside," he adds, "is they have to get hurt for me to educate them."

Coole came to Exeter in the fall of 1987 from Boston University, where he had been the men's basketball athletic trainer for two seasons. He received his undergraduate degree from UNH in 1982 and his master's degree from the University of Virginia in 1985.

At the time of his arrival, the PEA athletic training program was in a state of flux following a critical external health services review. It was, says Coole, "an ideal situation for me." He set about implementing a college model, where the trainers focused on orthopedic problems and referred illnesses and other issues to the school's medical staff. He credits the Academy's current medical director, Dr. Myra Citrin, who was appointed in 1993, with embracing his plans and supporting them. Coole has the authority to refer students directly to outside consultation, rather than working through the school's medical staff. "If a kid gets hurt now, I can have him or her in to see an orthopedist within an hour. Not too many doctors would give that kind of responsibility to an athletic trainer.".

Open communication between the athletic trainers and health services staff is the key. "There is such a level of respect," says Coole. "Not a single day goes by that we don't talk. Their staff is phenomenal. I don't think I could design a better system."

When he arrived, Coole was also faced with an athletic training room that had only three treatment tables and was just a third its present size. After several expansions, the athletic training room now contains eight treatment tables, a hydrotherapy room, and electrical muscle-stimulation, ultrasound and cardiovascular equipment. "Kids come back now after graduating," says Coole, "and say it's a better facility than what they have at their Division III schools."

Although the changes in facilities and staff interactions have been significant, where Coole has left his mark is on how the athletic trainers deal with the students. "The training room is very social," he says. "It's an environment where kids can come in and say what they want to say, in a respectful way, and not feel like anyone is looking over them." But Coole felt that to really do his job well, he needed to better understand what was going on in students' lives. "There was still a wall we couldn't pass," he says, and so he campaigned for four years to have his position changed from staff to administrative faculty. With the switch came all of the responsibilities of advising students and living in the dorms, both of which Coole deems vital to his successes in the athletic training room.

He spent seven years in Wentworth Hall, three years in Gould House and last year in Browning House, which, with 23 students and two faculty members, he calls the ideal situation. Coole credits much of his success in this area of his job to his first mentor at Wentworth. "Lawrence Smith was a great mentor for me," says Coole. "He explained things very patiently. He didn't have to take the time, but he did."

Coole moved out of the dorms last summer and into faculty housing. But he still works with advisees and serves on a Curriculum Review study group, and displine, health policy and safety committees.

Coole says he would recommend his job to almost anybody. "If you're really hungry for big-time athletics, this wouldn't be your cup of tea. But here you can make a difference in the students' lives. In the adolescent years, there's such a change in the students. To be an agent in that change is so satisfying.

"If there were a better job out there, I'd have applied for it." Coole pauses and smiles. "And I haven't applied for a job since I've been here."

Phelps Stadium, the Sequel Stan Phelps '52, the benefactor behind the Academy's Phelps Football Stadium as well as its science center, recently donated funds to build a football stadium at Phillips Academy in honor of his brother, Barry Phelps, a 1949 Andover graduate. Now the Exeter-Andover game will always be played in Phelps Stadium. Both brothers were on hand to help dedicate the new stadium at this fall's Exeter-Andover football game, which ended, fittingly enough, in a 14-14 tie. Shown here are (left to right) Andover's Acting Head of School, Rebecca Sykes, Barry Phelps, Stan Phelps and PEA Principal Tyler Tingley.

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