Training day

Not many people can say they’ve won four NBA Championships. It’s a pretty short list, but it includes some the NBA’s greatest contributors. The list includes names such as Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Robert Horry, Tim Duncan and Will Sevening.\nWait. Will Sevening? Who?\nSevening is the San Antonio Spurs’ head athletic trainer, a position he has held for nine seasons, four of which culminated in NBA Championships – the latest being last week.\nBut unless you are a diehard Spurs fan or a family friend of the Sevenings, you wouldn’t know that. You wouldn’t know who he is, what he does or how healthy he’s kept his teams for the past nine years.\nHis isn’t the name being thrown around on SportsCenter or being discussed on message boards across the globe regarding the Spurs last NBA Championship either. \nBut maybe it should be. That’s because without Sevening’s work, the Spurs would go nowhere. Literally.\nOne of Wisconsin-LaCrosse grad Sevening’s many jobs is coordinating the team’s travel plans. Once he gets the schedule, he sits down and plans the details of every trip, from plane and bus schedules to hotel rooms.\nAnd during the games, he keeps track of fouls and timeouts. \nOh yeah. He does all the medical stuff, too. \nBut he doesn’t get the media hype and attention he deserves, and he doesn’t seem to care. He feels fortunate to have such a sought-after job.\n“There are only 30 of these jobs,” Sevening said. “And I have one of them.”\nAnd he deserves the position. He is one of the best in the business. But his skill didn’t just come from the Alamo. He learned from one of the best.\nBefore Sevening landed the Spurs job, he was the assistant athletic trainer for the Indiana Pacers under former head athletic trainer David Craig. Craig acted as a mentor to Sevening and helped him become the trainer he is today.\n“David is one of the best around,” Sevening said. “I came to my own philosophy (that) I use with the Spurs from what I learned from David.”\nAnd the philosophy works. Four NBA championships can’t be won without a healthy team and that has been Sevening’s contribution.\n“Each one of our runs we have been very healthy,” he said. “If you aren’t healthy, you don’t go anywhere in the playoffs.”\nSevening added that part of his team’s good health can be attributed to luck. I’m here to tell you that you don’t get lucky four times in nine years without doing something right to help that luck.\nSportsCenter will show you Tim Duncan winning those four titles, but I’m here to tell you it goes beyond that. A team goes beyond what the media displays. A team even goes beyond the 15 players on the roster. The team is the whole organization.\nAs the saying goes, the whole is only as great as the sum of its parts.\nAnd Sevening is a major part, whether you know it or not.