CAZENOVIA — Over the holidays, former Cazenovia varsity football player Sawyer Hunt, 25, is heading to Pasadena, California with the Michigan Wolverines football team for the 110th annual Rose Bowl, “The Granddaddy of Them All.”
Hunt is an athletic medicine intern for the top-ranked University of Michigan team, which will be facing off against the No. 4 Alabama Crimson Tide in the college football playoff semifinal at the Rose Bowl Game on New Year’s Day.
Hunt started playing football in seventh grade and played through his senior year under coaches Bob Oldfield, Kyle Martin, Tom Neidl, and Jay Steinhorst, who happens to be Hunt’s uncle.
“I was a lineman for the offense and defense, playing a little bit of everywhere over the years,” Hunt said.
In 2015, Hunt’s senior year, the Lakers capped a perfect season by defeating Schuylerville 22-19 to take home the New York State Public High School Athletic Association Class B championship title.
The win marked the school’s first state football championship. It was also the first time a team in Section III won a state title in football.
2015 was Steinhorst’s first season as head coach and his 26th year coaching football at Cazenovia. The team was also led by assistant coaches Mark Evans and Kyle Martin.
“The team was obviously super talented and a lot of fun to coach,” said Steinhorst. “[I have] great memories of that group and the undefeated season.”
When looking back at that season, Hunt said that although he wasn’t on the starting lineup, it was cool to be part of the championship team and he always tried his best to help make his teammates and himself better in any way he could.
“Early in the season, everyone knew we had a good team so we did everything we could to make that season count,” he said. “Attention to detail was more crucial than ever, but also having fun and just playing football. At the beginning of the season, with all the hype around that team, coach Steinhorst told all of us to keep working and to ‘under sell, over deliver,’ not get too excited [by] what others may say about us. With each win, we stayed humble and kept working towards our goal of winning a state championship. At the end of the season, I chose [‘under sell, over deliver’] to be engraved [on] my championship ring to remember to stay humble and work hard.”
According to Hunt, his experience playing football and his passion for sports in general sparked his interest in pursuing a sports-related career.
His first exposure to sports medicine was as a teenager due to injuries he experienced during high school. Working with the athletic trainer at the time, Hunt was able to get a sense of what a career in that profession might look like.
“Another thing football did was get me interested in powerlifting,” said Hunt. “In each off-season, I lifted weights and played other sports to help me get better for the following football season. This only pulled me further into the dynamic of kinesiology and strength training. Athletic training is a good balance of all my passions when it comes to sport performance and being able to stay an integral part of sports.”
After graduating high school in 2016, Hunt attended Kansas State University, where he majored in athletic training and gerontology and minored in kinesiology.
He said that although he initially struggled in his college classes, he found his stride in the hands-on athletic training classes where he got to apply his new knowledge at clinical sites throughout Kansas.
Through those hands-on classes, he accumulated a total of over 2,200 clinical hours of experience at two 6A division high schools and the on-campus rec center and with the Kansas State football program and Kansas State track & field.
He passed the Board of Certification for the Athletic Trainer and graduated in May 2021 and then sought out a master’s degree program to gain further experience and knowledge in his chosen field.
Despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Hunt found a graduate assistantship at the University of South Florida, where he worked as a certified athletic trainer in the student health center, providing care for on-campus students. Most of his time, however, was spent caring for the school’s coed and all-girl cheer teams, as well as the dance team.
“While I had no experience in these sports and didn’t really think much of it, it was the best thing that could have happened,” Hunt said. “My coed team won their second and third national title in a row, the second team to do that in history, and my all-girl team won a national championship as well. My dance team would also go on to compete for the first time in 10 years and place fourth nationally.”
After completing his two-year program and receiving a master’s degree in advanced athletic training techniques, Hunt accepted his current internship with Michigan football.
He said he is hoping to find a full-time job in the next few months somewhere in the Power Five conferences, the five most prominent athletic conferences in college football in the United States.
According to Hunt, the Michigan football athletic medicine team provides care for 140 athletes and consists of four doctors on staff; four full-time athletic trainers; four certified athletic training interns, including Hunt; and four athletic training master’s students.
Hunt said that during football season, his role as an athletic trainer typically requires 10- to 12-hour workdays, seven days a week, and a lot of travel time.
“Aside from game day, the day following the game is very critical to create rehab plans for athletes who sustained an injury during play to ensure they are healthy for their next opponent,” he said.
Hunt explained that he and his coworkers start a typical day of work by readying the student-athletes for exercise using different types of electrical stimulation that prepare muscle fibers to fire properly.
Various sports medicine equipment is used to help warm up the athletes’ muscles before practices to ensure they are ready to perform their best and to prevent injuries.
When dealing with an injury, the athletic trainers work with strength coaches to modify the athlete’s strength and conditioning exercises to lessen the strain on the injury while keeping them on track and part of the team activity, Hunt said.
The staff also works with non-injured athletes daily to treat muscle soreness and prevent injuries.
“For games and practices, athletic trainers are critical to ensure proper hydration is achieved and to be on standby for any injuries that may occur on the field,” said Hunt. “Post-game and practice, we treat any injuries that may have occurred and use various sports medicine equipment to help players’ bodies unwind and increase their bodies’ recovery efficiency.”
On Dec. 18, Hunt reported that the entire football athletic medicine staff would be traveling with the University of Michigan football team to Pasadena a week before the Rose Bowl to allow the players to acclimate to the weather and time change.
Hunt said having his team make it to the Rose Bowl this year feels amazing.
“Coming into this year, everyone knew this team is special, and it’s a similar feeling to how it felt going into the 2015 football season,” he said. “This team is full of 140 great young men who I have nothing but the highest respect for. The team works hard to get one percent better each day with [unprecedented enthusiasm].”
