By MARTY LEVINE

For Kevin Conley, discovering opportunities in the sports medicine field has fueled his rise to chair of the Department of Sports Medicine and Nutrition and associate dean for undergraduate studies in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.

“I was an athlete, growing up” in upstate New York, Conley said at the latest Staff Council-sponsored Coffee and Conversation public interview on Sept. 17, “and I originally intended to pursue a career in physical therapy. But SUNY Oswego was my first school” as an undergraduate, “and I got a work-study position with the athletic trainer, so she’s the one that really started me on my path. She was a tremendous leader. At the time SUNY Oswego didn’t have an athletic training curriculum, so I knew I was going to have to transfer.” He moved to another SUNY campus, Cortland, where they had “a very strong athletic training program in a small Division III school.” As it turned out, the director of that program was in touch with people in Pitt’s graduate program, and he inspired Conley’s first trip to visit Pittsburgh.

He was captivated by the sight of downtown Pittsburgh as he emerged from the Ft. Pitt Tunnel “with my best friend Tim Henry. We both ended up coming here” in 1991.

Still, for the opportunity to launch a career at Pitt, Conley said, he owes a lot to Rick Burkholder, now vice president of sports medicine for the Kansas City Chiefs, but in 1993 the assistant athletic trainer for the Pitt football team. Burkholder had just been offered a position with the Pittsburgh Steelers. “He said, ‘Hey, do you need a job?’ I was like, absolutely, I need a job. ‘Well, you can have mine.’ He introduced me to the folks who were going to be part of the search committee. I already knew all of them anyway (they were all part of the sports medicine staff), but we went through the interview process, and I was fortunate to be selected for the position.
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“When I came to Pittsburgh,” he added, “I fully intended I would be here for two years, do my graduate assistantship, and then move back home, closer to where my family is, and get a job. But that opportunity I couldn’t pass up. To come out of graduate school and right away have an offer to work with a Division I football team was something I couldn’t pass up. So, it was a tremendous stroke of luck for me, and it’s changed my life. It’s the reason why I’m still here.”

Conley did have that graduate assistantship, at first, working with the Department of Athletics, specifically Pitt’s men’s and women’s gymnastics and swimming and diving teams, which gave him a large amount of hands-on experience for two years. He then worked with the Pitt football team for eight years under its head athletic trainer. At the same time, he became a clinical instructor for the athletic training program (then in the School of Education) and, finally, program director for 17 years before assuming his current role as chair. 

Conley says he particularly appreciated working under then-Chancellor Mark Nordenberg, counting this as “the highlight of my career. Just to watch him as a leader and just as a human being is very inspiring, and it’s really helped motivate me to be as strong a leader as I can be. I think he showed tremendous poise under all circumstances. He was not someone who was easily rattled, and he always had a very calm and level approach to everything that he did. But he was also very kind, and he was especially kind to me during a tough time in my career, and I’ve never forgotten that. I just respect him as much as anybody that I’ve ever been around.” 

Conley currently serves on the academic leaders network of Pitt’s NCAA home, the Atlantic Coast Conference. “I got an opportunity to spend a year traveling with other leaders from our university to different institutions around the ACC. I learned quite a bit, but I also learned that, in many ways, Pitt’s ahead of the game. We’ve got some tremendous programs and initiatives in place that help lead to student success, help lead to professional development for faculty and staff.

“I encourage anybody who has the opportunity to interact and create some collaborations with folks from other institutions,” he said, “to get a feel for the way they do things at their institution. I think in many ways you’ll find that Pitt’s on the right path here.”

Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.

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