“What this new division will provide is a more streamlined approach to our sports medicine services,” Hollis said in a statement on Friday. “Jim has pulled together many moving parts and has consulted with medical professionals to design, what we feel, is one of the most comprehensive Sports Medicine and Performance divisions in the country.”

Pignataro said the steps taken to better the department have been underway for a few months, but now was a critical time to implement the changes.

“I really think these changes allows us to have better planning and monitoring in our sports medicine practices,” Pignataro said. “We really asked a lot of our staff to take on a lot, and for athletic trainers particularly, the hours they work and the detail they have to have is immense, but what we’re able to do is take this, what we’re calling “sports medicine service array,” and really take a more administrative and strategic planning approach to all of our services.”

Following Monroe’s retirement, personnel changes have been made as well.

Dr. Jeff Kovan was appointed director of Sports Medicine and Performance. Dr. Sally Nogle took Monroe’s place as head athletic trainer. Dave Carrier is taking on the role of associate head athletic trainer. Former intern Salina Halliday was hired full time as an athletic trainer, and David Jager was added to the staff as the second athletic trainer for football.

Carrier, who has been a part of MSU’s athletic department for 30 years, said that the recent changes to the program are minor tweaks that he and the rest of the staff are doing to perfect the program.

“The three of us (Carrier, Nogle and Kovan) have over 80 years of experience at Michigan State alone, so it isn’t like we’re creating anything new; we’re just going to tweak the program and revisit some things,” Carrier said.

With the additional responsibilities the faculty holds, Carrier said the most important duty they must hold on to is their responsibility as educators.

“We have an academic program at Michigan State that has 50 student trainers (and) 12 graduate assistant trainers,” Carrier said. “So we’re constantly teaching these people … I do ice hockey, but I’m in the academic side of things as an adjunct professor. The same is true for Sally Nogle — that’s also true for other athletic trainers on our staff. That’s the piece that most people don’t understand when they view us.”

Nogle said the changes to the department are ones student-athletes can benefit from.

“We’ve always offered extra help, and now there will be some more positive things for the athletes that they will be able to utilize,” Nogle said. “There will be a few more services that will make a difference for the students, especially in the nutrition area.”

MSU running back Jeremy Langford said being a student-athlete is not easy, and whether the changes are major or minor, he appreciates anything being done to benefit them.

“It’s good that they are making these changes to better improve the different aspects of being a student-athlete, and it will also help with … showing parents that MSU cares about us as individuals and is willing to make changes to do so,” Langford said.