Joseph F. Clark, Ph.D.

Michigan State University has a great sports tradition. It also has a very well organized and large intramural sports program. The intramural slow pitch softball league had over 20 teams and would run all spring into summer. Some of the graduate students in physiology got together to form an intramural coed softball team. There were [...]

We got to the point where people were asking me what to do, and I said “nothing” because we had lots of well-meaning helpers now and just needed to hustle through the remaining tasks. Mary finally came to me and asked if we were going to make it. Without looking at my watch I told [...]

“What did you do, save someone’s life with a turkey club sandwich?” she joked. I smiled and made the friendliest eye contact I could by looking into Ann’s beautiful pale blue eyes and said, “No, no lives were at risk, but I think I saved someone’s wedding day.” Ann’s eyes seemed to soften and become [...]

Ann and I went to the comedy club and had a light dinner. I was driving and working (the experiment I’d left on the NMR), so I didn’t drink but she did. We chatted quietly during dinner and I learned about her brothers and the rest of her family and that she had a dog [...]

After a lot of discussions and reading, I asked Dr. Dillon if I could be his graduate student to work on a Ph.D. in physiology, after my masters was done. He asked me if I knew what kind of research project I wanted to do, I said yes and gave a brief outline of a [...]

The following week I did extremely well on my finals. I stayed in town and went looking for another job, because I would need it to earn the money to pay for graduate school. Also, as an out-of-state student, I needed to have a graduate assistantship at the university. Otherwise my tuition would be much [...]

“OK, I’ll lock up the training room. I suggest you get someone here for when practice ends.” I said. Clint hung up on me before I could say any more. Right then one of the wrestlers came in asking to have his wrist taped. I of course obliged him and told him I had just [...]

We were learning how to relieve back and neck tension by back and neck cracking along with muscle stretching. Because I had a solid anatomy background from dissecting Clare, all the lessons made tons of sense to me. The muscle stretching would focus on loosening the longest and strongest muscles to increase range of motion [...]

 I studied for and passed the Certification exam for the National Athletic Trainers’ Association and became a certified athletic trainer the summer before starting graduate school at Michigan State University. I left for Michigan State to join the training staff who were going to work with the football players at the start of camp for [...]

I drove my Ford Econoline 150 to the Canadian border from the New York side and entered Canada late one evening. My intention was to drive through the night to get to Michigan. I liked to drive at night because there was less traffic. I was pretty good at staying awake all night based on [...]