One of the more visible people in the organization, Pepper Burruss embarks upon his 20th season as the club’s head trainer, his 36th 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 58-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 Packers’ athletic training staff was honored by its peers with the NFL Athletic Training Staff of the Year award in 2011. It was the second time Burruss had won the award; the first came as a member of the Jets’ athletic training staff in 1985. Burruss’ Jets staff also was honored 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 against Kansas City at the Meadowlands.
Burruss has been involved in multiple head, neck and spinal-care initiatives. In 2010, he was chosen by the NFL to represent the Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society (PFATS) on the league’s Head, Neck and Spine Medical Committee, which led to his subsequent serving on both the Equipment Standards and Return to Play Criterion subcommittees.
Professionally, Burruss has served two terms on the executive committee of the PFATS, first as an AFC assistant athletic trainer representative, then as the NFC head athletic trainer representative.
A product of Wappingers Falls, N.Y., where he attended Ketcham High School, Burruss was inducted into the school’s hall of fame in 2000, and in 2011, he was also inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Trainers Association (WATA) Hall of Fame.
Born Thomas Pepper Burruss on April 15, 1954, in Beacon, N.Y., he and his wife, Nancy, have a son, Shane, 23, and a daughter, Christina, 18.
Also a medical practitioner, Nancy has her Ph.D. from Indiana University and is a professor at the Bellin College in Green Bay, where she is also the director of the undergraduate nursing program.
Burruss currently serves on the board of directors of the Northeast Wisconsin Curative Rehabilitation Center. He is active in the Packers’ annual “Rebuilding Together” (formerly “Christmas in May”) house-renovation project, serving as a house co-captain.
One of the more visible people in the organization, Pepper Burruss embarks upon his 20th season as the club’s head trainer, his 36th 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 58-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 Packers’ athletic training staff was honored by its peers with the NFL Athletic Training Staff of the Year award in 2011. It was the second time Burruss had won the award; the first came as a member of the Jets’ athletic training staff in 1985. Burruss’ Jets staff also was honored 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 against Kansas City at the Meadowlands.
Burruss has been involved in multiple head, neck and spinal-care initiatives. In 2010, he was chosen by the NFL to represent the Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society (PFATS) on the league’s Head, Neck and Spine Medical Committee, which led to his subsequent serving on both the Equipment Standards and Return to Play Criterion subcommittees.
Professionally, Burruss has served two terms on the executive committee of the PFATS, first as an AFC assistant athletic trainer representative, then as the NFC head athletic trainer representative.
A product of Wappingers Falls, N.Y., where he attended Ketcham High School, Burruss was inducted into the school’s hall of fame in 2000, and in 2011, he was also inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Trainers Association (WATA) Hall of Fame.
Born Thomas Pepper Burruss on April 15, 1954, in Beacon, N.Y., he and his wife, Nancy, have a son, Shane, 23, and a daughter, Christina, 18.
Also a medical practitioner, Nancy has her Ph.D. from Indiana University and is a professor at the Bellin College in Green Bay, where she is also the director of the undergraduate nursing program.
Burruss currently serves on the board of directors of the Northeast Wisconsin Curative Rehabilitation Center. He is active in the Packers’ annual “Rebuilding Together” (formerly “Christmas in May”) house-renovation project, serving as a house co-captain.
