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Pepper Burruss
Head Athletic Trainer
One of the more visible people in the organization, Pepper Burruss embarks upon his 16th season as the club's head trainer, his 32nd in the NFL overall. Overseer of the team's medical care on a daily basis, Burruss, a certified athletic trainer and physical therapist, joined Green Bay in 1993 following 16 seasons with the New York Jets as an assistant athletic trainer.
The 54-year-old Burruss was hired by the Jets in 1977 after receiving his B.S. degree in physical therapy from Northwestern University Medical School. One year earlier, he had graduated with honors from Purdue University, where he earned a B.A. degree in health and safety education. At Purdue, Burruss was fortunate to be a student trainer working under a legend in the field, the late William 'Pinky' Newell.
The Jets' training staff twice was honored during his stint with the team. In 1985, the unit was the first-ever recipient of 'NFL Athletic Training Staff of the Year' recognition, an award given by peers. The staff was honored again at the National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA) clinical symposium in 1994 by former Jets defensive lineman Dennis Byrd, who credited the team's emergency care as a contributing factor in his miraculous recovery from quadriplegia. Byrd had suffered a fractured neck after an on-field collision in a 1992 game with Kansas City at the Meadowlands.
More recently, and closer to home, the Packers' medical staff received the second-highest approval rating from its players among all National Football League teams in a 2000 survey conducted by the NFL Players' Association, finishing behind only the Giants.
Professionally, Burruss has served two terms on the executive committee of the Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society (PFATS), first as an AFC assistant trainer representative, then as the NFC head trainer representative.
This past season, he was one of two NFL athletic trainers appointed to join a distinguished group of physicians serving on the NFL Cervical Spine Committee. Their goal was to review current research and recommend state of the art cervical spine emergency response procedures in the NFL arena. Previously he served as the PFATS representative to the NATA Inter-Association Spine Task Force, which has created guidelines for the appropriate care of the spine-injured athlete and distributed that information across the country in the form of published guidelines, a videotape series and numerous educational seminars.
A product of Wappingers Falls, N.Y., where he attended Ketcham High School, he was inducted into the school's hall of fame in 2000.
Born Thomas Pepper Burruss in Beacon, N.Y., he and his wife, Nancy, have one son, Shane, 19, and one daughter, Christina, 14. Also a medical practitioner, Nancy is an Associate Professor and Director of the Undergraduate Program at the Bellin College of Nursing in Green Bay.
Burruss currently serves on the corporate board of Curative Rehabilitation Center in Green Bay and is active in the Packers' annual "Rebuilding Together" (formerly "Christmas in May") house renovation project, serving as a house co-captain.
A gifted public speaker, Burruss has lectured at seven National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA) Clinical Symposia, multiple state, district and college meetings, as well as numerous service organizations throughout Wisconsin. His lectures are supplemented with an extensive collection of photos that has recently grown with the addition of more than 5,000 images of the progression of Lambeau Field's redevelopment.
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