LEGENDS Continued from page 11


Jim Rowe ’87 When Jim Rowe was in high school, he found himself surrounded by alums of Springfield College. “I had a lot of Springfield grads who were


coaches of mine,” he says. “They basically hammered me and said, ‘You’re not going anywhere else but Springfield.’ They were completely correct. I got the best education that I could possibly get, with the best people.” Rowe was glad for the pressure. Knowing


he wanted to work with sports teams, he got his degree in physical education and began working with minor league baseball teams. Eventually, he found himself as a trainer for the Pawtucket Red Sox, the AAA affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. After just one year, in 1995, he was named head trainer of the major league club. Today, he is now the team’s medical coor-


dinator. “The head trainer’s job was getting too big,


so I took half of that job that I knew I could handle,” says Rowe, who won the Young Alumnus Award in 1997. “I have a set number of responsibilities. I do most of the liaison work with doctors, getting players their test- ing, doing the bill paying, handling workmen’s comp. I had been on the road for 20 or so years, and now I get to go home every night.” While Rowe was happy his coaches urged


him to go to Springfield College, he didn’t put any pressure on his daughter Brittany. But after making several trips to the College throughout her life, she soon found herself a first-year student on Alden Street, studying to be an athletic trainer. “She came downstairs one day and said, to


my disbelief, ‘I want to be an athletic trainer and I want to go to Springfield,’” he says. “It was a very proud moment.”


Mike Boyle ’81, G’82


Like Rowe, Mike Boyle knew he wanted to work with athletes, even though his dream job — strength and conditioning coach — was not yet a major at Springfield College. But as Boyle studied for his degrees in physical education, he saw alums just a few years older than he making a living the way he wanted to, includ- ing Mike Woicik ’80, who now works as the strength and conditioning coach for the New


TRIANGLE 1 Vol . 82, No. 1


England Patriots, and Rusty Jones ’76, G’86, now with the Chicago Bears. “Those guys got out of school ahead of me,


and they got part-time strength coach jobs,” Boyle says. It showed him that “what I really wanted to do actually exists. There are others who found jobs doing this. Before, it was kind of a pipe dream.” After graduation, Boyle began working as


an athletic trainer at Boston University, but soon focused on strength and conditioning — injury prevention instead of injury treatment. As time went on, he realized how quickly the field of strength and conditioning was grow- ing and that there was a business opportunity available. In 1990, he co-founded Mike Boyle’s Strength and Conditioning, a business that provides personal training for greater sport performance. The company has two Massa- chusetts locations — in Winchester and North Andover — and recently was voted one of the Top 10 Gyms in America by “Men’s Health” magazine. Athletes from college and profes- sional sports — including those in the NFL, NHL, MLB, WNBA, professional golf, professional tennis, profes- sional boxing, and more — are among the gym’s alumni, and Boyle still works


Mike Boyle


as the strength and conditioning coach at Boston University, a post he’s held for almost 30 years. “Springfield College teaches you how to


start your own business without any money. The emphasis was always that you don’t need a big budget, and you don’t need all the bells and whistles,” he recalls. “What is special about Springfield College is the faculty. I went there because I realized that it had some of the best teachers and coaches in the world, who were going to teach me to do what they did. I’m a huge proponent of that. I don’t think a kid could get a better education.”


Brian Rose ’07


While Brian Rose is still working toward what will become his career, he has already achieved some impressive accomplishments.


39 After graduating with a degree in criminal


justice, Rose went on to graduate school at Johns Hopkins University, working toward a master’s degree in arts and government, and should graduate in 2010. Early in his time at Johns Hopkins, Rose was selected to intern as an auxiliary office counselor to the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Rose was so impressive in his work that


his internship was extended another term, and he now works as an aide to chambers for Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer. “I assist him with the court side of his work,” he recalls. “I do everything from taking petitions and executing rotations to tracking briefs and anything else he might need with his schedule.” While Rose is unsure where he will attend


law school, he is interested in pursuing a career in international law. Rose, who served as a student trustee while


at Springfield College and was a wide receiver on the football team, said his interest in law was piqued at the College. “I developed my interest in law at Springfield, and that’s what brought me to the internship at the Supreme Court,” he recalls. “I can’t say enough about how it prepared me. My time in the classroom applies to work and the classroom now. The extracurriculars, including my time on the Board of Trustees, helped me function in this environment. Leadership skills and coping with the fact that every day is not a success, that you have to come back every day and not let the setbacks get you down — that’s some- thing you experience in football. I have a great deal of people to thank at Springfield.”


Today, thousands of undergraduate and grad- uate students are enrolled at Springfield College. In just a few years, some may be helping patients as a doctor or therapist, working in professional sports, starting their own business, interning at the United States Supreme Court, or completing work in any number of impressive and innovative fields. While the alums of Springfield College are original and eclectic, they all have one thing in common — they are making impressive names for themselves.1

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