Learning From High School to Michigan State to NFL to AHL
For his part, Bernstein’s own education as an athletic trainer started with his own elbow injury as a high school baseball catcher. The discomfort prompted a visit to an orthopedic surgeon to determine the extent of the injury. As it turned out, surgery was not necessary, but the physician’s diagnosis made a lasting impression.
“The doctor didn’t even have any imaging yet,” said Bernstein, still marveling at the memory. “He just moved my elbow and said, ‘You have a mild to moderate strain of your UCL [ulnar collateral ligament]. You need a few weeks of rest and some exercises, then you’ll be fine.’
“My mom and I looked at each other and asked, ‘Don’t we need some imaging?’ The doctor said, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ll get an MRI, but I already know.’ I was blown away by that … I was trying out for a summer team when I got hurt. At the time, it was embarrassing– ‘Oh, you’re the guy that got hurt during a tryout.’ Now I look back and I’m glad that it happened.”
That’s because Bernstein took a strong interest in sports medicine from there. At first, he was thinking about a career as an orthopedic surgeon when starting studies at Michigan State.
“I realized I couldn’t handle biology all too well because I’m not really interested in plants and fish and mammals, just humans,” said Bernstein, who explored other majors as an underclassman and eventually worked as a student trainer with legendary men’s hockey head trainer Dave Carrier. “Then an anatomy professor told me about athletic training, and it was the marriage of everything that I wanted.”
Before Coachella Valley, Bernstein gained experience with the NFL Los Angeles Chargers as a seasonal intern when the team and league were returning after the Covid-19 epidemic along with one season as an assistant trainer with the AHL San Diego Gulls. He soaked up knowledge and wisdom from mentors at each stop.
One concept instilled in Bernstein is now vital to his building relationships with Firebirds players: “The more time you spend around an athletic training room, physical therapy clinic or doctor’s office, the more you notice that when players walk in, the clinician says, ‘Hey, how are you doing today?’ The players immediately respond with how their injury is or how their body’s feeling. My mentors said, ‘Just stop them right there.’ The clinician didn’t ask you about the injury or how your body feels. The clinician asked you how you’re doing as a person. That is a really big key for how I’ve attempted to build this department and how we connect with our players.”