FBC
TRAINERS » Profile
Chuck Mooney
has found career success and satis- faction by helping and learning from others.
BY RACHEL DEBLING
D
SLAM DUNK!
40 Fitness Business Canada March/April 2009
espite being well below five feet in grade thirteen, Chuck Mooney made it to the NBA – albeit on the other side of the bench as
an athletic therapist and strength and conditioning coach. His journey there and beyond has been peppered with life lessons and hard work. "When I was younger, I was very
small so I didn't participate in a lot of sports besides wrestling," recalls Mooney. Inspired while volunteering with a local junior football team in his hometown of Windsor, Ont., he regis- tered for an athletic training course. "I learned how to tape ankles and assess injuries when I was in grade six," he laughs. "I've been in the business for a while."
Pay your dues
During his second year studying
athletic therapy at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ont., Mooney began work- ing as a therapist at the University of Toronto. He was certified by the Canadian Athletic Therapy Association after graduation and then focused full- time on what was to be an 11-year run at U. of T. Along the way, he designed strength and conditioning programs for many of the varsity teams and worked with the men's, women's and junior Canadian National Basketball teams. But the best was yet to come.
Build a reputation
When the Toronto Raptors franchise
exploded onto the scene, Mooney made an unsuccessful attempt at landing one of its athletic therapist positions. In 1996, after a push from General Manager Isiah Thomas and Assistant GM Glen Grunwald, he applied again but this time for the recently vacat- ed head athletic therapist position. He nabbed it and thus began an eight-
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