Touchdown: Sport science students score Yale internship

Two Federation sport science students say the chance to work in a high-profile sports program at one of the United States' most prestigious universities is the opportunity of a lifetime that they hope will boost their career opportunities.

Micah Drake and Liam Haintz will head to New Haven, Connecticut, in July, where they will commence their internships at Yale University for the university's American football team, the Yale Bulldogs.

The students will be strength and conditioning coaches for the Bulldogs, providing hands-on support to the team's players during the upcoming Ivy League football season. They will also spend their time in the United States acquiring and analysing athlete performance data as part of their honours research project at Federation.

The prospect of a student internship at Yale was conceived by Federation University Discipline Lead, Exercise and Sport Science, Dr Scott Talpey, a New Haven native.

Yale is one of the world's most prestigious universities, with its football program beginning in 1872, making it one of the oldest in the world.

Dr Talpey has connections to Yale through a previous role and suggested the internship to their coaching staff to support the Yale Bulldogs while allowing Federation students to further their studies.

He says having a prestigious institution such as Yale University calling upon the knowledge of Federation's Sport Science discipline is a strong endorsement of the University's Institute of Health and Wellbeing, whose Sport Science and Exercise discipline is ranked in the top 100 globally by the Good Universities Guide.

"Federation's Sport Science and Exercise team have helped many elite athletes and sporting organisations here in Australia, and now we are excited to have two of our students travel to Yale and share our knowledge and practices with one of the world's most prestigious institutions," Dr Talpey said.

"This internship at Yale University will provide an amazing opportunity for our students and is an endorsement of how highly Federation's Sport Science discipline is considered around the world."

Micah says the past few months had been hectic with exams and a literature review to complete before her focus could shift to the internship.

"I'd never thought I'd have the opportunity to do an internship at such a famous international university as Yale, so I'm really excited for this opportunity. There's been a lot of work to make this trip happen but it's finally happening and now I'm really looking forward to travelling to the United States next month."

"We get this fantastic opportunity to work with the athletes at Yale through the intern program but also to collect data for our own projects."

The research component of the internship was developed with orthopaedic surgeon at Yale's School of Medicine Dr Elizabeth Gardner who works with the university's athletics teams.

Dr Talpey says the conversations with Yale aimed to improve both the safety and performance of the athletes.

"Their football team had a lot of injuries last year and part of her role is to work with the strength and conditioning coaches to monitor the physical status of the athletes that are part of the football team and all of the athletic department," Dr Talpey said.

“That includes having athletes jump on a force plate to measure a variety of information related to their strength, power and fatigue. But through those conversations and testing, they realised maybe they were not looking at the right information.

"That's where Liam and Micah come in. They're going to look at a different type of jump on the force plate from what they normally do, and through that different jump, more insightful information can be gathered to inform the programming," Dr Talpey said

Historically, jump testing has athletes put their hands on their hips and jump up as high as they can and land, and information was gathered from that single jump.

"But this other jump is basically two jumps in one. They will do one max effort jump, hit the force plate and then immediately jump back up again. And using two jumps rather than one, we get twice as much information in a shorter period.

"This can be used to inform their programming and it can be very insightful."

The students say they plan to work in strength and conditioning in elite sport in Australia or overseas and Liam is interested in completing a PhD in sport science after this year.

"I'm grateful to have the opportunity to work at Yale and also immerse myself in US sports while I'm there," he said.

"I'm really excited as this is a huge opportunity for me, not only for my studies but for my future career aspirations as well.

"And sport is huge in America, so I'm hoping to see some big games while we're there."