Situated between Greensboro and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, sits the city of High Point, home to High Point University. Sporting the newly finished Nido and Mariana Qubein Arena and Conference Center, two stadiums, two athletic centers, and a biomechanics lab, High Point University is home to a full sports medicine staff serving 16 athletic teams and over 1,400 student athletes.
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Joshua Geruso, MS, LAT, ATC, CSCS, is the Associate Athletic Director for Sports Medicine at HPU, as well as a proud alumnus. Hailing from Rhode Island, Geruso found himself at High Point for his undergraduate studies after extensive research on athletic training programs on the east coast. Ever since, he’s stuck to North Carolina, having served as an athletic trainer for both Elon University and North Carolina State University. Now, he’s been part of the High Point Sports Medicine Team for eight years and counting.
"[With] the resources that we have here in the facilities, I do believe that we can be a really competitive program nationally,” said Geruso, pointing to the fact that, two years ago, HPU had the highest ranking in the Director’s Cup that a Big South team has ever had.“What we’ve been doing here has certainly proven, over the last 8 years that I’ve been here, that we can get from a 200th ranked program to the top 75, and hopefully we can keep moving.”
Geruso attributes High Point’s success over the past several years to the Sports Medicine Team’s dedication to the students. High Point has a very student-oriented culture, so the team is always looking to stay current and adapt to students’ needs. The resources provided for both the students and the Sports Medicine Team are “second-to-none,” Geruso said, making the program effective for everyone involved.
“We feel like we’re always building something new or changing something,” Geruso said. “Always looking for feedback from student athletes, how we can improve, what their expectations are, what their needs are—so, the ability to change and try new things is really just exceptional here.”
The team’s willingness to always find ways to improve is consistent with one of the key points in their mission statement: “to provide our student-athletes with a holistic environment that will foster their athletic and personal well-being.” Geruso and the Sports Medicine Team work to create this holistic environment both with how they treat injuries and with the relationships they build with the athletes. In terms of holistic treatments, the team tries to see the bigger picture – they look at the injury and any potential causes to work towards a fuller preventative approach.
Creating trusting relationships with the athletes is the second component to the team’s comprehensive approach to wellness and injury treatment:
“We have more than just the recovery and the rehabs, so sitting there and having conversations – things weren’t great at home, or you broke up with your girlfriend—it’s more than ‘you just helping us get back on the field.’ There are bigger issues at play sometimes,” Geruso said.
The team’s comprehensive approach to athlete care, paired with the university’s state-of-the-art facilities, makes Geruso confident that High Point University will continue to grow, improve, and give student athletes “the experience they deserve.” Learn more about their team, the facilities, and the university at www.highpointpanthers.com.
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