By Dwight Bachman
 
WILLIMANTIC, Conn. -- In a recent basketball game at Geissler Gymnasium, the referee stopped a fast break play after an Eastern Connecticut State University player bent over, holding his hand.  Unbeknownst to all, the player had dislocated his finger. In basketball, a dislocated finger is a serious injury. Players need their fingers to dribble, shoot and rebound.
 
Like a first responder in an emergency situation, the first person to rush to the player's aid was Tom Holton '89, one of Eastern's two certified, fulltime athletic trainers along with Julie Alexander, also an Eastern graduate. Holton held the player's injured hand as they left the gym to attend to the injury. We can tell you the player is seeing an orthopedic hand specialist.
 
A dislocated finger is one of many injuries Holton addresses in the course of a day or week and certainly a month or year. The injury could be a torn knee ligament, a sprained ankle or wrist, the list goes on. And of course, there is all the administrative paperwork involved with processing the repair of the injury. Through it all, Holton loves his work.
 
"As an athletic trainer, my day starts with doing rehabilitation with our injured athletes, then cover practices and games," said Holton. "The best part is seeing an injured athlete being able to get back to the sport they love to play after suffering a season-ending injury. The worst part is telling an athlete they can no longer play due to their injury. Men's lacrosse presents the most challenging with their injuries. Men's lacrosse is a collision sport where there is lots of hitting each other and the ball being shot at up to 80 miles per hour."
 
There is hardly anyone better to deal with acute or chronic injuries than Holton, who was hired as an assistant athletic trainer at his alma mater in 1999 under former head AT Dr. David Yeo.  Outside the office in his spare time, Holton is an avid bicycle racer. Last summer, he was engaged in a huge crash during a road race in New York. With two miles left from the finish line, someone touched his front wheel and caused him to crash at 25 mph! Imagine that!
 
 "I fractured eight ribs and clavicle in several places." The clavicle is the bone that connects the breastplate (sternum) to the shoulder. "I had three

surgeries to fix everything and was back to racing ten weeks later. I was back on the trainer training three weeks after surgery."
 
Is he Superman, or what!
 
Growing up, and through high school, Holton was always physically active, involved with football, baseball, golf and ice hockey, which he continues to play in a men's league. He also competed as an Olympic weightlifter after graduating from nearby Windham High School.
 
A health challenge actually got Holton in bicycle racing. He was told that he had Lyme Disease in 2002. He became sedentary and his weight shot up to 228 pounds! He was seen by a rheumatologist and a neurologist for treatment, which prescribed exercise. He tried different exercises, especially swimming, but cycling was the least painful.
 
"I joined a local club, the Thread City Cyclers. At first, it was more social. The comradery was great. Everyone really cared about each other. I then went to a racing clinic and tried racing. I got the racing bug, put a number on my back and later found a coach who sends me my workout weekly. I train six days a week all year long, racing for the Cheshire Cycle Racing Team." In the case of inclement weather, Holton train indoors on his computerized trainer, which is linked up to ZWIFT, an app to race against other racers who are logged on. And when the Lyme Disease flares up, Holton takes medication to deal with it. But it's racing that makes him forget about the disease.
 
Bicycle racers have to have their USA cycling license to race in any bike race. There are different levels of racing categories—Category 5 to Category 1. Holton races at Category 3 level. And he is serious.
 
Holton races Time Trial, Criterium road racing, gravel racing (a combination of dirt roads and trails) and Cyclocross, the latter being a unique, non-Olympic discipline of cycling, a cross between road cycling, mountain biking and steeplechase, where cyclists dismount their bikes, carrying the bikes as they run up some stairs and steep embankments.
 
Each type of racing has a different bike. "I have six bikes at home and several different types of wheels for each. Each bike needs to have the right wheels, chains and brakes. Bicycle geometry is important in all road races."
 
Holton has traveled across the nation, racing in national cyclocross championships, including the recent Pan-American cyclocross championships at Falmouth, MA on Nov. 4, where he finished 15^th; State Road and Criterium championships; and in a number of Time Trial races where he has finished in third, fourth and fifth place, respectively. He raced in the New England Road, Criterium and Time Trial Championships, placing second in the New England Time Trial Race.
 
He also has a few friends who race on world tour teams as professional riders. They race in the Tour de France, Vuelta a Spain and Vuelta de Burgos in Europe, the big-name races. During Veulta de Burgos, a six-day stage race, Holton was in the team car for Burgos BH team, a team which a friend managed. "I got to experience what it is like to be a pro team rider."
 
Pardon the pun, but athletics runs in the Holton family. His wife Kimberly '96 played softball at Eastern for two years. She is mother of three daughters, two in high school and one in college. The daughters love to ride bicycles but don't race. One plays softball and volleyball in high school; the other two did crew (team boat-rowing) in high school.
 
Athletic trainers, according to the American Medical Association, are health care professionals.  They are essential to an athlete's health and care. They collaborate with physicians to prevent injuries and to restore health to injured athletes. The athlete may just need ice and a heating pad. He or she may need more a knee braces, arm sling, whatever. Every day is something new, a different injury. The opportunity to make an athlete's life better builds relationships that can last a lifetime.
 
Holton works long hours, traveling with teams on weekends, mending injuries sometimes with three athletics events going on simultaneously. It could be swimming, basketball, field hockey or any of the 19 sports at Eastern. One wonders where he finds the time to train and compete in local, regional and national bicycle racing competitions across the land.
 
On Dec. 6 and 7, Holton will race in the USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships at Riverside Park in Hartford. For sure, he will be watching his nutrition and gluten intake for that race to ensure he doesn't bonk out.
 
He is fit and lean and has strategized his race well. It will be fun to see him on his aerodynamic bike, taking the lead, breaking away from the pack, crowds cheering at the cadence of his smooth pedal stroke and handing him some water before he nears the finish line. Imagine how sweet it will be to see him leading in the sprint to the finish line and crossing it first in his personal best time ever.
 
And after he crosses the finish line, he will be back on the court or the field, mending twisted ankles, torn hamstrings and knee ligaments, and yes, dislocated fingers.