Quick Chat: Sean Boland
June 24, 2020 | Baseball, The Frierson Files
b>By John Frierson
Staff Writer
In normal times, Georgia associate athletic trainer Sean Boland gets to enjoy the best of two worlds he cares deeply about, sports medicine and baseball. Boland has been working with the Bulldogs' baseball team for six years, helping the players get and stay healthy before, during and after their long seasons.
These, of course, are not normal times. During the coronavirus pandemic shutdown, Boland has been making the most of his time at home, however. Between spending time with his wife and two sons and working his way through a long list of projects around the house, Boland has been happily quite busy these past few months.
During our Quick Chat, he talked about being a guy that fixes things, getting into sports medicine, working with baseball and much more. Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: What have the last few months been like for you, because obviously, they've been way different than what you'd normally be doing this time of year?
Boland: Certainly it's a different time. They've honestly been a blessing. In my 12-year career, I've never had this much time at home, so I've been able to hang out with my two boys and my wife and do a lot of projects that don't get done during the baseball season.
From a personal standpoint it's been great, from a professional standpoint it's a very weird time, FaceTiming or calling or texting your student-athletes when you're used to so much interaction on a daily basis. It's certainly much different, you don't have the same impact on them that you're used to.
Frierson: I've talked to a bunch of different people during the shutdown and it seems like a lot of them are doing projects around the house — some of them have gone well and others not so well. What have you been doing and how would you rate your performance on those projects?
Boland: Coach Scott Daeley said that he thought he had done a lot and when he heard my list he was sort of embarrassed. I rebuilt a deck, a re-screened my porch, I installed a new toilet, I put in 209 feet of chainlink fence, I redid my backyard — I literally have been trying to stay busy and get these big projects knocked out.
Frierson: Have you always been a handyman or is this something new?
Boland: I would say YouTube is a great invention but yeah, I'm pretty handy. I'm going to at least try it once [laughs] and see if I can get it done. Around the office, a lot of the people if they have something broken or something's not operating properly, they'll usually check with me and we'll see if we can troubleshoot it. I've definitely got an inquisitive mind to try to figure out how stuff works.
Frierson: In terms of sports medicine and athletic training, when did you know that this is what you wanted to do?
Boland: I had a college roommate, Joey Wilson, in junior college — I was a soccer player and not a very good one, but good enough to go to junior college and play — and I had a roommate that was a year ahead of me who left out junior college to go to Valdosta State to study sports medicine. He went ahead of me to Valdosta State and it just seemed like a fascinating blend of medicine, of sports, of being outside, so I followed him to Valdosta State and from there just fell in love with the profession.
Frierson: What is it that you fell in love with the most?
Boland: I would definitely say the interaction with the players. There are very few people in athletics that get to have the impact and daily interaction with the players that myself and Ryan Gearheart, our strength coach, get to have. We're not necessarily limited by the NCAA about how much interaction we can have, so it's just those personal connections with the players.
It is an absolutely rewarding thing to see these skinny little kids come in as freshmen and leave as men, to go on to life or more baseball after college. Now we've been doing it long enough that you're seeing guys that are getting married and having kids, and that part of it is a blast.
Frierson: What is the best meal you've ever eaten? Is there one that stands out above the rest?
Boland: The best meal of my life? My dad turned 60 a couple of weeks ago and he had Maryland blue crab sent down from Maryland, had it overnighted, and that was a phenomenal meal. It was a good celebration and a phenomenal meal.
Frierson: Are you also handy in the kitchen?
Boland: I would say I'm very handy in the kitchen. My mom made sure I could cook just about everything. I love to cook — I love doing stuff on the grill but in the house, too, is just fine.
Frierson: When you're dealing with baseball which is such an everyday sport, what is that daily grind like in terms of maintenance with players and keeping everybody healthy and ready to go?
Boland: That's the part that I love. When we get into January, as soon as Christmas break is over and the guys are coming back to campus, that's when you know what you're doing essentially each day. That's when you blink and you're in late May or early June.
I like the pattern of it; it's certainly a little bit of a process to get the younger guys to understand what we're doing and that it is a long season and that if we'll build at the front end then we'll be healthy and ready to go at the back end. This group of players that has come through the last two-to-three years, those older guys, that whole core group of guys really built this thing. That's where it's not a grind because they are energized by the season and energized by coming in every day, and that only rubs off on you as the athletic trainer.
Frierson: Were you already a big baseball fan?
Boland: I was an army brat and my first six years I grew up living in Germany, so soccer was the big thing there. I played that as a child and all the way through junior college, but baseball has always been something I was raised on. My dad's from Baltimore, so Cal Ripken, Jr., and The Streak were part of my childhood. I've always been a massive baseball fan, I just wasn't necessarily good enough to play it at a collegiate level.
When I was able to combine sports medicine and the baseball side of things, that all just clicked for me.
Frierson: If you could go anywhere in the world on somebody else's dime, where would you like to go?
Boland: Ireland. Our family has specific ties — the story I'm told is that our family was driven here (the United States) by the Irish potato famine. I would love to be able to go back and see those roots and find out more about that. If somebody else is paying, I'd say Ireland.
Frierson: With all of the travel that baseball does every season, do you see much of the towns and cities you visit, or is it the hotel, the ballpark and maybe a restaurant or two?
Boland: It feels that way, the hotel and the ballpark and that's about it, but if I know an athletic trainer in the town we're going to, or if I know somebody else in that town, then maybe I'll try to get out and see some things. But if you don't know anybody in that town, you're sort of limited to that area and it sort of does become that pattern: hotel, ballpark, eat, go to bed and do it again.
Frierson: If you could be great at anything for a day, just to experience what it's like, what would it be?
Boland: I would love to know what it's like to have power at the plate and be able to hit a baseball with the power that these guys do. Or be able to pitch like some of these guys do, mid-90s and can make the ball bend and kind of defy physics. I think either one of those for me would be phenomenally cool.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Staff Writer
In normal times, Georgia associate athletic trainer Sean Boland gets to enjoy the best of two worlds he cares deeply about, sports medicine and baseball. Boland has been working with the Bulldogs' baseball team for six years, helping the players get and stay healthy before, during and after their long seasons.
These, of course, are not normal times. During the coronavirus pandemic shutdown, Boland has been making the most of his time at home, however. Between spending time with his wife and two sons and working his way through a long list of projects around the house, Boland has been happily quite busy these past few months.
During our Quick Chat, he talked about being a guy that fixes things, getting into sports medicine, working with baseball and much more. Here's some of what he had to say:
Frierson: What have the last few months been like for you, because obviously, they've been way different than what you'd normally be doing this time of year?
Boland: Certainly it's a different time. They've honestly been a blessing. In my 12-year career, I've never had this much time at home, so I've been able to hang out with my two boys and my wife and do a lot of projects that don't get done during the baseball season.
From a personal standpoint it's been great, from a professional standpoint it's a very weird time, FaceTiming or calling or texting your student-athletes when you're used to so much interaction on a daily basis. It's certainly much different, you don't have the same impact on them that you're used to.
Frierson: I've talked to a bunch of different people during the shutdown and it seems like a lot of them are doing projects around the house — some of them have gone well and others not so well. What have you been doing and how would you rate your performance on those projects?
Boland: Coach Scott Daeley said that he thought he had done a lot and when he heard my list he was sort of embarrassed. I rebuilt a deck, a re-screened my porch, I installed a new toilet, I put in 209 feet of chainlink fence, I redid my backyard — I literally have been trying to stay busy and get these big projects knocked out.
Frierson: Have you always been a handyman or is this something new?
Boland: I would say YouTube is a great invention but yeah, I'm pretty handy. I'm going to at least try it once [laughs] and see if I can get it done. Around the office, a lot of the people if they have something broken or something's not operating properly, they'll usually check with me and we'll see if we can troubleshoot it. I've definitely got an inquisitive mind to try to figure out how stuff works.
Frierson: In terms of sports medicine and athletic training, when did you know that this is what you wanted to do?
Boland: I had a college roommate, Joey Wilson, in junior college — I was a soccer player and not a very good one, but good enough to go to junior college and play — and I had a roommate that was a year ahead of me who left out junior college to go to Valdosta State to study sports medicine. He went ahead of me to Valdosta State and it just seemed like a fascinating blend of medicine, of sports, of being outside, so I followed him to Valdosta State and from there just fell in love with the profession.
Frierson: What is it that you fell in love with the most?
Boland: I would definitely say the interaction with the players. There are very few people in athletics that get to have the impact and daily interaction with the players that myself and Ryan Gearheart, our strength coach, get to have. We're not necessarily limited by the NCAA about how much interaction we can have, so it's just those personal connections with the players.
It is an absolutely rewarding thing to see these skinny little kids come in as freshmen and leave as men, to go on to life or more baseball after college. Now we've been doing it long enough that you're seeing guys that are getting married and having kids, and that part of it is a blast.
Frierson: What is the best meal you've ever eaten? Is there one that stands out above the rest?
Boland: The best meal of my life? My dad turned 60 a couple of weeks ago and he had Maryland blue crab sent down from Maryland, had it overnighted, and that was a phenomenal meal. It was a good celebration and a phenomenal meal.
Frierson: Are you also handy in the kitchen?
Boland: I would say I'm very handy in the kitchen. My mom made sure I could cook just about everything. I love to cook — I love doing stuff on the grill but in the house, too, is just fine.
Frierson: When you're dealing with baseball which is such an everyday sport, what is that daily grind like in terms of maintenance with players and keeping everybody healthy and ready to go?
Boland: That's the part that I love. When we get into January, as soon as Christmas break is over and the guys are coming back to campus, that's when you know what you're doing essentially each day. That's when you blink and you're in late May or early June.
I like the pattern of it; it's certainly a little bit of a process to get the younger guys to understand what we're doing and that it is a long season and that if we'll build at the front end then we'll be healthy and ready to go at the back end. This group of players that has come through the last two-to-three years, those older guys, that whole core group of guys really built this thing. That's where it's not a grind because they are energized by the season and energized by coming in every day, and that only rubs off on you as the athletic trainer.
Frierson: Were you already a big baseball fan?
Boland: I was an army brat and my first six years I grew up living in Germany, so soccer was the big thing there. I played that as a child and all the way through junior college, but baseball has always been something I was raised on. My dad's from Baltimore, so Cal Ripken, Jr., and The Streak were part of my childhood. I've always been a massive baseball fan, I just wasn't necessarily good enough to play it at a collegiate level.
When I was able to combine sports medicine and the baseball side of things, that all just clicked for me.
Frierson: If you could go anywhere in the world on somebody else's dime, where would you like to go?
Boland: Ireland. Our family has specific ties — the story I'm told is that our family was driven here (the United States) by the Irish potato famine. I would love to be able to go back and see those roots and find out more about that. If somebody else is paying, I'd say Ireland.
Frierson: With all of the travel that baseball does every season, do you see much of the towns and cities you visit, or is it the hotel, the ballpark and maybe a restaurant or two?
Boland: It feels that way, the hotel and the ballpark and that's about it, but if I know an athletic trainer in the town we're going to, or if I know somebody else in that town, then maybe I'll try to get out and see some things. But if you don't know anybody in that town, you're sort of limited to that area and it sort of does become that pattern: hotel, ballpark, eat, go to bed and do it again.
Frierson: If you could be great at anything for a day, just to experience what it's like, what would it be?
Boland: I would love to know what it's like to have power at the plate and be able to hit a baseball with the power that these guys do. Or be able to pitch like some of these guys do, mid-90s and can make the ball bend and kind of defy physics. I think either one of those for me would be phenomenally cool.
(This Q&A was lightly edited for length and clarity.)
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
