David Kaufman likes to stay busy. He is a tenured professor at Michigan State University, a clinician and clinical researcher with multiple National Institutes of Health and extramural grants as well as the founding chair of the MSU Department of Neurology and Ophthalmology. He is the assistant vice president of clinical affairs in the Office of Health Sciences and is based in the College of Osteopathic Medicine and College of Human Medicine. Kaufman practices through MSU Health Care and is involved in the new Neuro Care Network, which is a joint operating agreement between MSU Health Care and U-M Health Sparrow. He has authored more than 160 publications on various aspects of neuro-ophthalmology and neurology.
Kaufman also served as the neurologist for MSU football and traveled with the team during the “concussion crisis” of the last decade. His new book, “We Need You in the Locker Room,” is his first-person perspective of the years he served on the sidelines. All proceeds will be equally divided between the Foglio Endowed Chair of Spirituality in the College of Arts and Letters and the George Webster Memorial Scholarship in Spartan Athletics.
Here, Kaufman shares more insight about his time with MSU football and his passion for the game.
How did you get to work the Spartan sidelines?
During the 2010s, awareness of concussion overtook the country, and MSU sought answers to two questions. First, how serious is a sports-related concussion? And second, how do we best protect professional and student-athletes?
They turned to me, a faculty neurologist, and the next thing I knew, I transformed from a stuffy clinician-researcher into a sports neurologist.
I love Spartan football and for 25 years I sat in the upper deck of the stadium — hundreds of yards away from the field. I often wondered what it would be like to be on the sidelines. I thought that would never happen, but I still hoped. And suddenly, there I was!
Do you have experience playing football?
In 1966 I watched the MSU vs. Notre Dame game on TV. They were the two top-ranked teams in the nation, and they fought to a 10-10 tie in the “Game of the Century.” The spectacle inspired me to try out for my high school football team. I suffered a broken arm during my first practice, and my parents let me know my football career was over. However, in college I had a second go at the game.
While I was an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin, I took a class taught by UW football coaches. It was only open to physical education majors, but I wormed my way in on the pretense that I was on assignment from the student newspaper. I thought we’d be talking to the coaches and playing touch football. Instead, I was immersed in daily on-field “labs” where we students acted as tackling dummies for the varsity players. We were pounded to pulp! After each class, I was a physical wreck. I walked home slowly, nursing an endless series of arm and leg injuries. But I fell deeply in love with football during that class.
What’s one of your favorite Spartan football memories?
It was Oct. 9, 2010. We played Michigan at the Big House. The game went back and forth until Le’Veon Bell scored on a 41-yard run for the Spartans, allowing them to take the lead 14-10. Dan Conroy followed up with a field goal 23 seconds before halftime to make it 17-10.
Scoring right before the half against an archrival in a close game — there is no greater motivation! The locker room was electric. Everyone was talking it up, and it seemed the guys were primed to beat the Wolverines to make it a third time in a row. All we had to do was keep up the momentum. MSU had not won three in a row against Michigan since Lyndon Johnson was president nearly a half-century earlier.
In the second half, the Spartans continued to lead. Michigan’s talented quarterback, Denard Robinson, scored at the start of the fourth quarter, but then the Spartans took total control with a 28-yard field goal to make it 34-17. With six minutes left in the game, Michigan had the ball at its own 40-yard line on fourth down, needing six yards for a first down. U-M Coach Rich Rodriquez surprisingly decided to punt the ball, down 17 points with time evaporating. With that act, he admitted the game was over and all he wanted was to end the game with a score that was not embarrassing.
Following the victory, our football equipment leader, Mr. Nick, was quick to bring the Paul Bunyan Trophy out of the locker room and onto the field. Following his lead, the players decided to carry it all around the Big House field, the first time the trophy had ever been displayed outside of the locker room after the game in anyone’s memory. The Spartans deserved it. Three wins in a row against an outstanding archrival was pretty incredible.
Why does Father Jake Foglio, the team clergy and a principal on the MSU medical football team, stand out for you?
I remember seeing Father Jake — the Doctor of Soul as I called him — in the tunnel at the 2014 Rose Bowl. He was 84 years old, five-foot-two and 110 pounds. He was barely visible among the giant players. He may have been the tiniest person in that tunnel, but he was one of the biggest human beings I ever encountered. His flock at MSU consisted of so many people — including most of the coaches, staff and players in the tunnel — it would be impossible to count them all.
Father Jake was both respected and beloved. One of his greatest gifts was the ability to calm any player (any person, for that matter) with just a few words.
While I was still learning the nuances of my role, I tried making small talk with the players prior to a game. I’d say something like, “Are you all right?” Jeff Monroe, the head athletic trainer/assistant director of athletics at MSU, heard me do that before a Wisconsin game, and he jumped all over me.
“Dave, what are you doing?” he asked. “Do not ask a player if they are ‘all right.’ Especially on game day. What is wrong with you? That is a way to get inside their head and in a very bad way. They might start thinking, ‘Hey, am I all right? Maybe my knee isn’t what it should be. Maybe I ought to sit down or get it checked out.’ Dave, be very careful what you say to a player especially on game day. Don’t use that phrase anymore. Find another. Understand?”
After that, I was shattered, but Father Jake picked up the pieces. “Dave, Monroe is a good man as you know. He gets a little, shall we say, excitable. Maybe you can come up with a different phrase to make that small talk with the guys to help settle them down like, ‘Are you good?’ Try that phrase out instead.”
Father Jake had a way to solve virtually any dispute and make things right. He was a master at it.
Why did you write the book?
In 2020, I promised Father Jake I would write about some of our football conversations. He passed in October that same year. Now I’m keeping my promise.
The book is in no way meant to be a “tell-all” exposé about Spartan football, its players, coaches or medical staff. Just the opposite. I have very rarely developed such respect for a group of people as I did during those days of growing into my role as a sports neurologist. Fulfilling that lifelong ambition to somehow help my university’s football team — long after any rational possibility of doing that was gone — is without a doubt the most amazing thing that happened to me during my university tenure.
Despite its dangers, football is engrained in American culture. There’s danger in riding in a car on a highway too. The key is safety. One of the reasons I wrote the book was to implore us to seek even more safety in football.
Also, I wish to use the book as a way to fund two MSU-related causes that are very important to me, The Father John (Jake) Foglio Endowed Chair of Spirituality and the George Webster Memorial Scholarship. The Webster scholarship supports those who wish to complete their degree after they are done playing football. Online donations can be made at MSU’s Make a Difference web page.
“We Need You in the Locker Room” is available on Amazon, Apple Books or Barnes and Noble. Additional information is available at davidikaufman.com.
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