Retired NFL trainer knows: finding your field makes all the difference

Todd Toriscelli, BSH ’84, graduated from the OHIO athletic training program and went on to a decades-long career working for the NFL. After retiring from his role as vice president of sports medicine for the Tennessee Titans earlier this year, he and his wife, Chris, have turned their attention to supporting the next generation of professionals in the field.

“I have so much pride in OHIO,” Toriscelli said. “It’s such a special place to me.”

The newly established Todd and Chris Toriscelli Endowment for Athletic Training will support students enrolled in the OHIO athletic training program through student scholarship opportunities.

“It was just something I really wanted to do, because I really feel like OHIO played the biggest role in my whole career,” Toriscelli said.

As a teenager, Toriscelli first attended and played football for the University of Akron, but his grades suffered and he returned home. None of his extended family had ever gone to college, and his parents were proud of him for giving it a try. That seemed like the end of that path—until a friend intervened.

“He gave me a textbook, said ‘Just read through this,’ and I couldn’t put it down,” he recalled. That exchange convinced Toriscelli to look into OHIO’s athletic training program and give college another shot.

From that point on, Toriscelli was hooked. When he came to OHIO, a conversation with Charles “Skip” Vosler—then the head trainer for OHIO Athletics and director of athletic training education, and now head athletic trainer emeritus—pushed him to step up his academic game. Vosler told Toriscelli that if he received a grade of a C or lower during his first semester, he would be out of the program.

Toriscelli didn’t just meet that goal—he surpassed it with a 4.0 grade point average that semester. He said Vosler’s warning was “the best thing anyone ever said” to him, because it challenged him to do better.

“I didn't really have the grades [at Akron] because I had never applied myself, but once I got to OHIO, everything clicked,” Toriscelli said. “I did really well academically and really loved what I was doing.”

As a result, he had “complete and total commitment to the athletic training program.” Athletic training students, according to Toriscelli, are often in classes until early afternoon and then spend their next hours in the athletic training room gaining hands-on experience, which he likened to having a full-time job on top of one’s classes.

“If you don’t enjoy that and immerse yourself in it, you’ll never survive [in the field],” he said. Also instrumental, he added, was learning new ways to study and engage with the material. He credits his classmates and professors as crucial to his success both in the classroom—“we all looked out for each other, and we helped each other study”—and in his eventual career.

Toriscelli said he established the scholarship to support the next generation of athletic trainers, just as he was supported as a student.

“I just feel really indebted to OHIO, and I felt like the least I could do would be to endow a scholarship to an athletic training student,” he said.

In addition to the endowment, Toriscelli recently spoke to current athletic training students at OHIO alongside industry peers and former roommates Russ Hoff, BSH ’85, and Greg Rose, BSH ’85. Together they answered student questions and offered advice on the industry.

“Sometimes, when you're somewhere that's special, you might not realize it right away," Toriscelli told students. "But you can be very proud to just be in this room, because this program has been at top-tier athletic trainer institution dating back to even before I was in it."

Rose echoed the sentiment, sharing how privileged he felt to be back at OHIO and, like Toriscelli, citing the relationships he cultivated in the program as an important part of his career success.

“The networking and friendships you develop along the way are just invaluable,” Rose said. “You can always go back to those people, and you always have somebody to reach out to if you need an opportunity.”

For Toriscelli, OHIO was the key touchpoint in establishing his career in professional sports, so he is excited to give back to the University community.

“Without OHIO, and without Skip Vosler having faith in me my first year and giving me a chance, none of my career success ever would have happened,” he said. “That’s why I’m just so honored to give back and be able to come back on campus.”