Sean Pena - Physiotherapist to the Track Stars


An excerpt from article, as published in the Spring 2013 issue of TrackSide magazine (tracknation.com). Link at bottom to continue. 

TrackSide Magazine is proud to welcome Sean Pena as a featured contributor to the TrackNation movement.

Pena is a renowned physiotherapist who works with elite runners, as well as NFL players and other world-class athletes. Some of his best known clients read like a Who’s Who in track and field - Justin Gatlin, Shawn Crawford, Allyson Felix, Lolo Jones, Will Claye, Tyson Gay and Brittany Reese are among those who have worked with Pena.

Ironically, Pena got into the physiotherapy field from the patient end. While playing soccer as a student at the University of Oregon, he suffered a shoulder injury. His uncle was an associate athletic director for the Ducks, so Pena looked to the Oregon athletic facilities for help with his rehabilitation.

Pena recalls, “The physio specialist there at the time was Chris Wexstein. He was already working with Gatlin, Crawford and Marion Jones. We became friends. Around 2002 or 2003, I went back to California with him for the U.S. Nationals at Stanford and observed and worked with one of the athletes. For two or three years, I worked as an understudy.”

In the aftermath of the BALCO doping scandal, which ended up with several suspensions, Pena’s upward trajectory was put on hold.

That changed with a phone call in 2008...


To continue reading, please go to page 30 of TrackSide magazine, found at http://trackstar1.tracknation.com

"In Grohl We Trust" - - Foo Fighter delivers SXSW Keynote


It’s not much of a secret that I LOVE the Foo Fighters. To me, they represent a lot of the raw energy and drive that is missing in music today. In short, they rock!!

In particular, I am a Dave Grohl fan. Honestly, I wasn’t really a Nirvana fan, and would probably list them in the “slightly overrated” category. They were in the right place at the right time, and touched a throbbing nerve among the young and disenchanted. Of course, when the lead singer, Kurt Cobain, died from his own hand at a young age, he joined the ranks of the “too much, too soon legend status.” Many on this list are deserving of legend status, such as Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and to a smaller degree, Amy Winehouse, because she was a great singer, but a walking train wreck. I probably wouldn’t include Janis Joplin (another misdirected Amtrak in fur lined boots), or really any musician not named Winehouse who died before the age of 30 in the past 25 years. To me, Cobain is probably somewhere in between. But I understand why he was influential.

Grohl is different to me for many reasons. First of all, he’s a local guy, hailing from Springfield, VA. In fact, he attended my alma mater, Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria, for a year or so, and was in the same class as my brother Jeff. He also played his first gig in Alexandria, an open mike outing at a hole in the wall bar in the Shirley Duke shopping center called Treebeard’s. It was literally just across the Duke St./South Jordan intersection from our neighborhood. I can claim to have attended a couple of those open mikes back in 1983 or so. For the record, the bar made many transformations, to Stoney’s CafĂ©, J.J. Mugg’s and Zig’s. A Chipotle is in that spot now, just in case anyone wants to put a plaque on the wall for rock history’s sake.

Here’s a true story from Ireton. Grohl’s English 9 teacher was Brother Rick Wilson. Bro. Rick was a patient man, but not much of a match for the always active Grohl, especially when he delighted classmates with his incessant drumming on the desk. Exasperated one day, Wilson chided his young student. For the record, Grohl neither confirms nor denies this incident; in fact, his response to the recollection was “too funny!”

“David, you’ve got to stop that. You’re never going to amount to anything with all that drumming.”

Seventy million albums later, there are a few people who might disagree with that remark.

Grohl is aware of a lot of these things, and shared his message of hope and music during a brilliant keynote speech at last week’s South by Southwest music convention in Austin, TX. Dressed in his grunge uniform of open flannel shirt and jeans, the 44-year old rocker kept 2,500 listeners in the palm of his hand for 48 minutes while reminiscing on his own path to fame and fortune.

His message –“the musician comes first.”

More specifically, it’s all about finding one’s voice.

"Left to your own devices, you can find your voice," Grohl exclaimed. "Cherish it, respect it, nurture it, stretch it and scream until it’s gone." In the end, he adds that it doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad because “it’s yours.”

It may come as a surprise to learn whose voices the head Foo Fighter is following these days.

“I think that Gangnam Style is one of the best f***ing songs of the past decade! It’s not about guilty pleasure. How about just pleasure?”

Looking back at the formation of Nirvana, Grohl admitted the timing piece of their success. “Here’s where music was when we were starting out, rattling off the top ten songs of 1990 to the delight of the audience. Laughing through names such as En Vogue, Phil Collins and Bell Biv DeVoe, he built his thought up, climaxing with the punch line, “do you know what the number one song was in 1990? Wilson F***ing Phillips – Hold ON!!” (Point of note – Grohl loves to drop the F-Bomb).

The speech was brilliant, and worthy of a man with Grohl’s talent. Certainly only three or four years away from Nirvana’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he is now held to a high standard, and delivers with one Foo album after another. Speaking of his band’s name, he called it “a stupid f***ing name – I just didn’t want the record people to know it was one caffeinated guy running from instrument to instrument.”

Most importantly, the message was about finding oneself. Grohl’s instrument of change was “Frankenstein,” the 70’s instrumental anthem from Edgar Winter. His own hope is to be the same inspirational voice for others. In closing, he spoke of introducing his daughters, Harper (3) and Violet (6) to the Beatles, in the form of their vinyl box set.

“I pray that someday that they are left to their own devices, that they realize that the musician comes first, and that THEY find THEIR VOICE, and that THEY become someone's Edgar Winter, THEY become someone's Beatles, and that THEY incite a riot, or an emotion, or start a revolution, or save someone's life.
That THEY become someone's hero.
But then again . . . what do I know?”
Well played Mr. Grohl.

David Prince's Amazing Journey

An excerpt from article, as published in the Spring 2013 issue of TrackSide magazine (tracknation.com). Link at bottom to continue. The accompanying video on David Prince, world record holder in the unilateral amputee 400-meter dash, is shown on the right.

Where there were drugs, now there is drive.

Where there was a lower right leg, now there is a prosthetic device.

Where there was a life on the brink of disaster, now there is hope.

On March 14, 2002, David Prince’s life changed forever. Speeding on his “crotch rocket” motorcycle while racing a Honda Civic, pockets loaded with marijuana, Prince mishandled a turn and flew off his bike, breaking his foot cleanly off in the process. When he came to, there may have been an element of trauma and shock, but one would think that his first concern would be for the location of his newly missing appendage. Instead, the first words out of his mouth upon regaining consciousness only echoed the seriousness of how dark and desperate his existence had become.

“Where’s the weed at?”

It was a matter of making a life readjustment.

The journey was long and bumpy; in fact, it would be 18 more months before Prince, with suicide on his mind, and garbage bags carrying all of his possessions strewn across his mother’s front yard, had hit bottom and finally made the statement that set him on the right path.

As he recalls now, it was as simple as honestly admitting, “I needed to do something different.”

To continue reading, please go to page 36 of TrackSide magazine, found at http://trackstar1.tracknation.com

"Johnny Football" Fights for His Name (w/video)

Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M is looking
to secure the trademark for "Johnny
Football," his better known nickname.
This could stop those who have profited from
his collegiate success and start a new trend
for college athletes

In a move that could change the face of college sports as we know it, Johnny Manziel, the most recent winner of college football’s Heisman Trophy, has started the process of trademarking his “Johnny Football” nickname, a maneuver which would allow him the right to sue others who wish to make money off of his wildly popular moniker.

And according to a recent ESPN article by Rick Reilly, this is not something to be taken lightly. Reilly cites a study by Joyce Julius and Associates which shows that Texas A&M earned $37 million in free publicity last year from their redshirt freshman quarterback. This doesn’t count profit from increased ticket sales and the millions in new alumni donations which suddenly appear as soon as the home team makes it deep into the postseason and earns its first Heisman in over 50 years.

It’s about time somebody figured out how to attack the leeches.

One of the worst kept secrets in sports is the allowance of the NCAA and free enterprise system to fleece the college athlete. In college sports, the T-shirt hucksters, EBay mongers and knick knack collectors are free to earn a living selling items representing their favorite college players and teams. Coaches and administrators enjoy six and seven figure contracts (even the top assistants are pulling half a mil!), use of country club privileges and school jets to work their recruiting magic. Each August, the video game makers come out with the newest college football games, designed to include the most current players. These games will net tens of millions of dollars for the folks at EA, and other gaming companies. Universities also rake in millions of dollars from these endeavors.

The players – eh, don’t do quite as well. Perhaps it doesn’t bother the blue chippers who will end up becoming first round draft picks, as they will make their millions of dollars. But a guy like Manziel is generously listed at 6-foot-1 and appears more likely to follow the professional paths of other Heisman winners such as Eric Crouch, Jason White and Troy Smith, more so than an RG3, Cam Newton or Roger Staubach.

But most starters on major college football (and every other) teams earn their scholarship, room and board, and enough spending money to cover laundry expenses and not much else. Some say it's enough, and in most cases are correct. But the star attractions deserve more.

First of all, I don’t blame the universities for making every cent they can. In fact, only less than twenty percent of the Division I BCS football teams turn a profit. That money, plus the billions earned from college basketball usually finds its way to also supporting the other sports in each NCAA program, such as my beloved cross-country and track.

I have written on this subject in the past, and tried to forward the idea that student athletes deserve a larger stipend as part of their scholarship – meaning somewhere in the $500 per month range. The only problem is that instituting such a rule would drive a deeper wedge between the haves and the have nots. And then, who gets the increased stipend? With 100 players on the football team, the tab already becomes about $500,000 per year. Granted, that’s one offensive coordinator, but it’s also one sport. Do the basketball players get denied? How about the fencers and the gymnasts?

Months ago, I heard of the idea of letting college athletes earn the opportunity to market themselves, and think it’s brilliant. A booming tenor at Texas A&M has the right to go out and make a record to sell, so why is a guy like Manziel supposed to sit back while almost 2,000 items with his likeness and name attached are up for sale by others on EBay?

The free enterprise system has to work on both ends. If the college athletic fans can make money, why shouldn’t the athletes? Perhaps the starting tailback at U. Mass has fewer earning opportunities than the one at USC, but that’s what free enterprise is all about. And who knows, maybe the guy at U.Mass breaks a 99-yard touchdown and enjoys his 15 minutes of fame on the “Today” show. For the sake of reference, this morning, “Today” highlighted a 55-foot buzzer beater which helped New Rochelle (NY) HS win a basketball playoff game.

This could be the fairest idea because it doesn’t pay college athletes per se. It pays college celebrities. There is a difference.

Good luck to Manziel. I hope this starts a trend.