Photo – From left: FGCU interns Tyler Corbin, Josh Bridge, Justin Bommarito and Kyle Sellers tend to Boston Red Sox minor leaguer Nicholas Duron in the training room at JetBlue Park, spring-training home of the Red Sox.
Tyler Corbin ended up with a Major League Baseball organization after all — just not as the professional player he dreamed of becoming.
Instead, Corbin, who played club baseball at FGCU before an elbow injury ended his competitive days, is one of four FGCU interns working with the Boston Red Sox minor-league medical staff at the nearby JetBlue Park complex. Corbin and fellow FGCU senior athletic-training majors Justin Bommarito and Kyle Sellers — along with Josh Bridge, who’s working on a doctorate in physical therapy — help with everything from evaluating, stretching, rehabilitating and doing physicals on players to setting up the hydration stations around the fields every morning.
During spring training, the foursome put in days that started at 6 a.m. and didn’t end until 5 p.m. or later, but, Corbin said, it’s truly a labor of love.
“Athletic training helped me stay in sports, and now I get to help athletes like myself get back on the field,” he said. “Being with the Red Sox has been an unbelievable experience — learning from an extremely smart, qualified staff to throwing and catching with the players when I’m needed. It has been a great way to get back into the sport that I played my whole life, and I’ve made connections that will allow me to pursue a career in the field.”
That’s yet another part of The FGCU Effect: Even when life throws you a curve, Eagles still find a way to hit it out of the park.