Burlingame’s athletic trainer now an author

Despite high school athletics being suspended for almost a year during the pandemic, Smith was hardly just lying about the house. He was planning and implementing guidelines and procedures for when sports did return.

Smith has taken what he learned during the pandemic and his years of athletic training and put it into book form. Smith is one of 27 trainers to contribute a chapter to the book “What’s Next? Igniting Change & IMPACT in Health, Fitness and Life … NOW!” which was compiled by Todd Durkin, well-known strength and conditioning coach, personal trainer and motivational speaker.

“I follow him on social media,” Smith said. “In a post, he put out that he wanted to do this and if anyone was interested to schedule a call with them.”

Smith said the point of the book was to show how trainers around the country go about their business and what they learned during the pandemic. Smith was intrigued about the idea and reached out to Durkin’s team in early 2022. After a series of interviews, Smith was invited to provide a chapter for the book.

“We wrote our perspective on what happens next (after the pandemic),” Smith said. “The mental health of the athletes, physical health and even spiritual health.”

Smith said he started working on his chapter in March of this year. Smith said the only published work he’s ever had prior was his master’s thesis.

“Because I had to,” he said.

Other than that, Smith had no real time writing under his belt writing, but he had the idea of what he wanted to put in his chapter.

“I didn’t write out of a framework, but I had a process in my head,” Smith said.

The title to Smith’s chapter is, “The Path to Health and Wellness Starts Early,” in which he recommends student-athletes become familiar with five health and wellness components: weight training, nutrition, rest, recovery and mental health/mindset.

Smith said he turned around his first draft pretty quickly for his first editing deadline. He said they told him to turn it in whenever he was ready, he didn’t have to wait until the deadline. He said he sent his rough draft in a couple weeks early.

He was more methodical with his second draft. He said he spent about an hour to 90 minutes writing a couple times a week and turned in his copy closer to the deadline.

“It was interesting,” Smith said of the writing experience.

Now that the book has been published, Smith is continuing to help people with their health and wellness. Smith, along with all the other authors, decided to donate all proceeds to the book to the Durkin IMPACT Foundation — which has awarded more than $250,000 in college scholarships to underserved student-athletes. The book can be purchased at Amazon and other book retail outlets.

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Because of Central Coast Section rules, there will be no Peninsula Athletic League girls’ tennis championship round.

The PAL’s individual tournament was to have started Nov. 1, but the rain forced a two-day postponement, which pushed the PAL singles and doubles tournament up against the CCS team and individual tournaments. In the past, the PAL would try to squeeze in the championship and third-place matches.

But PAL director of tennis Bill Smith sent out an email Wednesday saying those final matches would not be played.

“Was informed CCS final date of Nov. 4 is firm,” Smith said in the email, meaning CCS set that deadline to completely be done with league play. Because the PAL is not allowed to contest those matches, “We will declare the singles and doubles finalists as co-champs and the 3rd/4th place finishers will declared co-semifinalist,” the email said.

That means Menlo-Atherton’s Ava Martin, the top seed, and No. 2 seed Varsha Jawadi from Aragon, will share the singles championship. On the doubles side, top-seeded Tessa Ellingson and Eva Chow of M-A, and Carlmont’s Lisa Borchelt and Brooke Franasek, the No. 2 seed, will be co-champs.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117. To report scores or tips, email sports@smdailyjournal.com.