‘GUARDIAN ANGEL’
7/18/2023 12:46:00 PM | General, Health & Wellness
After foregoing medical school, Brother Kevin has spent 21 years as a Baylor athletic trainer
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
For "Brother" Kevin Robinson, the plan was always to be a doctor.
As a pre-med major at Baylor who had already taken his MCAT (Medical College Admission Test), Robinson "knew in my heart that I loved helping people. That's who I am as a person."
"If you would have asked me back then, 'Kevin, what are your top three professional goals?' I would have said physician, probably a physician assistant and then three would have been athletic training. What I found out was that God had it the other way around," he said.
With God establishing his steps, Robinson decided to forego medical school and stay on at Baylor in 2002 as the first full-time athletic trainer for track & field and first African American trainer at the school.
"Here we are 21 years later, and I'm still doing it. I'm humbled by it all," said the 43-year-old Robinson, Director of Athletic Medicine for the Baylor track and field program.
"Ministry is a big deal for me, and I want to be able to do that through medicine in some capacity. But God has blessed me to be able to do it through athletic training. I prayed and said, 'Lord, I just ask that you not withhold one good thing from me, but I'm all-in. I'm doing this for the glorification of you. Whenever and wherever I can bless other people, I'm going to do it.'''
And while Robinson has made his career in athletic training, ministry is his passion. An ordained deacon at Highland Baptist Church, he has a way of "meeting kids where they are," said Baylor head track and field coach Mike Ford.
"Every time I think about Kevin, I think of someone who encourages, loves kids, is an extension of us when we can't be there," Ford said. "Kevin does a great job of meeting kids where they are and sharing a word when it's led for him to share a word."
Oftentimes, he meets them in some of their darkest times, an injury keeping them from doing what they love to do.
"I remember, honestly, getting goosebumps talking with him and the way he was speaking into my life," said grad student Annamaria Kostarellis, who set a school record in the 10,000 meters in qualifying for the 2023 NCAA Championships.
"I kind of see him as my real-life guardian angel, because he said all these obstacles you've overcome have been a part of your story and contributed to the reason why you're going to have success here. I just couldn't feel like I belonged anywhere else."
Growing up in Katy, Texas, Kevin was the first born of Calvin and Audria Robinson, a truck driver and nurse (currently a bus driver with Katy ISD), respectively.
"My dad had a pretty tough upbringing and lost his mom at 16, and his dad was not really there. He did a lot of growing up on his own," Kevin said. "He started driving trucks, but he was very intentional. He always told the job, 'I'm fine with driving, but I need to be home by a certain time.' And he really was. I can't tell you, honestly, how many times I remember him not being there. He was always present, which I always appreciated."
As much as his parents were around and raised him in the church, it was Kevin's grandmother, Florence Williams, that "raised me and a lot of my cousins."
"She was one of the biggest influences in my life," he said. "She was one of those individuals who just loved the Lord and was a great example of what faith was like for me. My dad was the one that taught me how to pray, but I was with my grandmother a lot because my parents were working a lot. When I got older, my grandmother wanted me to stay there with her because she was legally blind. Sometimes, I would stay with her more than my parents."
After running track and playing basketball in junior high school, Kevin was cut from the basketball team as a freshman at Katy High. "I was 4-foot-11, 95 pounds, that's why I got cut," he said.
With one door seemingly closed, Kevin opted to get into athletic training and worked with first-year athletic trainer Russell Sedberry. Coming from a graduate assistant position at the University of Texas, Sedberry is celebrating his 30th anniversary at the school next month.
"We hit it off pretty good," said Kevin, who was inducted into the Katy High School Hall of Honor four years ago. "He was coming in as the head athletic trainer and I'm a first-year student, it was fun because we did it together. My four years there at Katy High School, he was just a great mentor and resource for me that helped me grow and love and be passionate about it."
As early as his sophomore year at Katy, Kevin started applying for colleges and potential scholarships, working with school counselor Diane Strunk and eventually earning the Baptist Heritage Scholarship. Even with scholarship help, "I came to Baylor, really, on faith," he said.
"I knew my parents couldn't afford it, so I'm going to take out loans and do whatever I needed to do," he said. "But it just goes back to the testament that whatever you put your heart into, if you trust in the Lord, it will work itself out."
Jumping right into it as a 17-year-old freshman in the summer of 1997, Kevin worked alongside an athletic training staff that included Mike Sims, David Chandler, Alex Olson, Jerry Pate and Becky Spurlock.
"I came in with the understanding of what work was. And that didn't bother me," Kevin said of the three-a-day workouts under football coach Dave Roberts. "I always enjoyed that. I remember having the big clock hanging up at the old practice fields. But it was a great experience for me."
Truth is, if Kevin hadn't met a freshman from Coolidge, Texas, during his sophomore year at Baylor, he likely would have graduated in 2001 and headed off to medical school. Instead, he got the chance of a lifetime when he was asked to travel with the track and field team for the Tyson Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark.
"The only thing that kept me at Baylor for another year, if I'm being honest, was that I met this amazing young lady named Crystal," Kevin said. "We ended up meeting at the (Student Union Building) and dated for 2 ½ years before we got engaged."
In a well-orchestrated event at the Ferrell Center, Kevin proposed during a timeout of the Feb. 17, 2001 women's basketball game versus Missouri, with the Baylor cheerleaders holding decorated posterboard that said, "Crystal, will you marry me?"
"Everyone has stopped and they're looking in our direction because they didn't know who Crystal is," Kevin said. "When she finally looks and sees the sign, I'm on my knee with the ring and everything. And the people behind us were like, 'Well, what did you say?' She squeals and says, 'YES!' It was amazing. When we sat down, the gentleman next to me said, 'What if she had said no?' And I just busted out laughing. I said, 'Brother, I never even thought about that.'''
With the engagement and wedding planning keeping him in Waco for another year, Kevin put off his graduation until 2002. But the plan was still medical school until he got the call from legendary track and field coach Clyde Hart.
"I went to Arkansas with them and had a blast. That was the first time I had ever been, so Fayetteville has a special place in my heart," he said. "I'm thinking I'm going back to work with football, but (David Chandler) said Coach Hart asked if I could stay through the rest of the year. This is February, and we're getting married in July. But my fiancée said, 'If that's what you want to do, you should do it.'''
Anchored by freshman Darold Williamson, an eventual Olympic gold medalist, Baylor's 4x400-meter relay won the NCAA indoor title and finished second behind South Carolina by five-hundredths of a second in the NCAA outdoor meet.
"Honestly, it's probably still one of the most amazing races, if people want to watch Darold Williamson run," Kevin said of Williamson's 43.97-second split at the NCAA Outdoor. "That was an unbelievable anchor leg. I've never seen anything like it."
At the end of the season, Chandler urged Kevin to apply for a newly added position as the Bears' first full-time trainer for the track and field program.
"At first, there was some vanities there. 'Nah, I've got to go to medical school. I'm going to give my parents a new home, Lord, because I appreciate everything they've done and the sacrifices they've made,''' he said. "But when I prayed about it, I got this unbelievable peace and calm about it all. I already love Mike, I love Coach Hart from my time with him. DC (Chandler) is a great mentor for me. And for him to ask me that, I know it's sincere."
The Summer of 2002 was a big one for the Robinson family. Kevin and Crystal were married on July 27 and graduated together on Aug. 10, just in time for Kevin to start his full-time job at Baylor.
While he started working on a master's in exercise physiology that fall, the load of handling 100-plus student-athletes and trying to do school work on top of that became overwhelming.
"I've still got medical school, my (MCAT) scores are good for five years. So, I can still do it if I choose," he said. "But if I was possibly still going to do medical school, I needed to slow down and focus on one thing. So, I slowed down and focused on athletic training. We were moving to an accreditation program, so I focused on getting my certification. That's kind of how I kept going. And then, of course, the rest is history."
Working with the track program during a golden era, Kevin got to witness the men's 4x400 relay winning 42-consecutive races and five of six national championships in a three-year period (2007-09); Jeremy Wariner sweeping the 400 meters at the 2004 NCAA indoor, NCAA outdoor and Olympics; the women claiming the team title at the 2017 Big 12 indoor meet; and a red-letter day in 2021 when KC Lightfoot, Ackera Nugent and Aaliyah Miller won national indoor titles in their respective events.
"I've worked with every Olympian here at Baylor," he said. "The unique thing about Michael Johnson is he's older than me, but he was the agent for Jeremy Wariner and Darold Williamson, so he and I became very close. He also worked with Team China and Team Japan, so he'd always be here at Baylor in the summer. Even Sanya Richards, she was at Texas for a couple of years, but she trained here for 10 years with Coach Hart."
Through the help of Benny Vaughn, a massage therapist from Fort Worth who still travels with USA Track & Field, Kevin also got a chance to work with Team USA for a couple of years before the birth of his son, Caleb, in 2007. A daughter, Kristina, came along three years later.
"It's been an eventful journey, and God has constantly been at the head of it," he said. "God's word is unique: 'In a man's heart, he plans his course, but his steps are ordered by the Lord.' And that's a great example of my life. I've had all these thoughts and all these things, and God has constantly said, 'This is where you need to be. This is what I want you to do.' I've tried my best to be humble and follow that. And it's been pretty amazing."
Whether it's work or his free time, everything is about family. Kevin is still close with his parents and sisters, Kim and Kendra, and went to Hawaii last year with Crystal to celebrate their 20th anniversary.
"My parents kept the kids, so it was a huge, huge blessing," he said.
The tightknit family with the track program includes the trio of Baylor graduates Ford, Robinson and associate head coach Stacey Smith, who have all been together for the last 21 years.
"I think at the time, me, him and Stacey were the only minorities on our staff, so we all talked to each other a bunch,' Ford said. "We all had a little, I would say, dysfunction in our family. Stacy and I both had single moms, and we were all really close with our grandparents. We always talked about family and how we wanted something stable. For us, it seemed like track was that at the time."
In the sanctum of the training room, Kevin is a calming voice in the midst of the student-athletes' storms.
"You've got to understand that in this environment, it's pretty negative," he said, "because everyone gets hurt. How do you find a way to be positive with individuals who are going through probably the most challenging time in their life? Some of these kids have never had an injury a day in their life, and now here they are away from their mom and dad. It's an amazing opportunity to help them grow and give them some peace and comfort while navigating through probably one of the most trying times in their life."
Baylor Bear Insider
For "Brother" Kevin Robinson, the plan was always to be a doctor.
As a pre-med major at Baylor who had already taken his MCAT (Medical College Admission Test), Robinson "knew in my heart that I loved helping people. That's who I am as a person."
"If you would have asked me back then, 'Kevin, what are your top three professional goals?' I would have said physician, probably a physician assistant and then three would have been athletic training. What I found out was that God had it the other way around," he said.
With God establishing his steps, Robinson decided to forego medical school and stay on at Baylor in 2002 as the first full-time athletic trainer for track & field and first African American trainer at the school.
"Here we are 21 years later, and I'm still doing it. I'm humbled by it all," said the 43-year-old Robinson, Director of Athletic Medicine for the Baylor track and field program.
"Ministry is a big deal for me, and I want to be able to do that through medicine in some capacity. But God has blessed me to be able to do it through athletic training. I prayed and said, 'Lord, I just ask that you not withhold one good thing from me, but I'm all-in. I'm doing this for the glorification of you. Whenever and wherever I can bless other people, I'm going to do it.'''
And while Robinson has made his career in athletic training, ministry is his passion. An ordained deacon at Highland Baptist Church, he has a way of "meeting kids where they are," said Baylor head track and field coach Mike Ford.
"Every time I think about Kevin, I think of someone who encourages, loves kids, is an extension of us when we can't be there," Ford said. "Kevin does a great job of meeting kids where they are and sharing a word when it's led for him to share a word."
Oftentimes, he meets them in some of their darkest times, an injury keeping them from doing what they love to do.
"I remember, honestly, getting goosebumps talking with him and the way he was speaking into my life," said grad student Annamaria Kostarellis, who set a school record in the 10,000 meters in qualifying for the 2023 NCAA Championships.
"I kind of see him as my real-life guardian angel, because he said all these obstacles you've overcome have been a part of your story and contributed to the reason why you're going to have success here. I just couldn't feel like I belonged anywhere else."
Growing up in Katy, Texas, Kevin was the first born of Calvin and Audria Robinson, a truck driver and nurse (currently a bus driver with Katy ISD), respectively.
"My dad had a pretty tough upbringing and lost his mom at 16, and his dad was not really there. He did a lot of growing up on his own," Kevin said. "He started driving trucks, but he was very intentional. He always told the job, 'I'm fine with driving, but I need to be home by a certain time.' And he really was. I can't tell you, honestly, how many times I remember him not being there. He was always present, which I always appreciated."
As much as his parents were around and raised him in the church, it was Kevin's grandmother, Florence Williams, that "raised me and a lot of my cousins."
"She was one of the biggest influences in my life," he said. "She was one of those individuals who just loved the Lord and was a great example of what faith was like for me. My dad was the one that taught me how to pray, but I was with my grandmother a lot because my parents were working a lot. When I got older, my grandmother wanted me to stay there with her because she was legally blind. Sometimes, I would stay with her more than my parents."
After running track and playing basketball in junior high school, Kevin was cut from the basketball team as a freshman at Katy High. "I was 4-foot-11, 95 pounds, that's why I got cut," he said.
With one door seemingly closed, Kevin opted to get into athletic training and worked with first-year athletic trainer Russell Sedberry. Coming from a graduate assistant position at the University of Texas, Sedberry is celebrating his 30th anniversary at the school next month.
"We hit it off pretty good," said Kevin, who was inducted into the Katy High School Hall of Honor four years ago. "He was coming in as the head athletic trainer and I'm a first-year student, it was fun because we did it together. My four years there at Katy High School, he was just a great mentor and resource for me that helped me grow and love and be passionate about it."
As early as his sophomore year at Katy, Kevin started applying for colleges and potential scholarships, working with school counselor Diane Strunk and eventually earning the Baptist Heritage Scholarship. Even with scholarship help, "I came to Baylor, really, on faith," he said.
"I knew my parents couldn't afford it, so I'm going to take out loans and do whatever I needed to do," he said. "But it just goes back to the testament that whatever you put your heart into, if you trust in the Lord, it will work itself out."
Jumping right into it as a 17-year-old freshman in the summer of 1997, Kevin worked alongside an athletic training staff that included Mike Sims, David Chandler, Alex Olson, Jerry Pate and Becky Spurlock.
"I came in with the understanding of what work was. And that didn't bother me," Kevin said of the three-a-day workouts under football coach Dave Roberts. "I always enjoyed that. I remember having the big clock hanging up at the old practice fields. But it was a great experience for me."
Truth is, if Kevin hadn't met a freshman from Coolidge, Texas, during his sophomore year at Baylor, he likely would have graduated in 2001 and headed off to medical school. Instead, he got the chance of a lifetime when he was asked to travel with the track and field team for the Tyson Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark.
"The only thing that kept me at Baylor for another year, if I'm being honest, was that I met this amazing young lady named Crystal," Kevin said. "We ended up meeting at the (Student Union Building) and dated for 2 ½ years before we got engaged."
In a well-orchestrated event at the Ferrell Center, Kevin proposed during a timeout of the Feb. 17, 2001 women's basketball game versus Missouri, with the Baylor cheerleaders holding decorated posterboard that said, "Crystal, will you marry me?"
"Everyone has stopped and they're looking in our direction because they didn't know who Crystal is," Kevin said. "When she finally looks and sees the sign, I'm on my knee with the ring and everything. And the people behind us were like, 'Well, what did you say?' She squeals and says, 'YES!' It was amazing. When we sat down, the gentleman next to me said, 'What if she had said no?' And I just busted out laughing. I said, 'Brother, I never even thought about that.'''
With the engagement and wedding planning keeping him in Waco for another year, Kevin put off his graduation until 2002. But the plan was still medical school until he got the call from legendary track and field coach Clyde Hart.
"I went to Arkansas with them and had a blast. That was the first time I had ever been, so Fayetteville has a special place in my heart," he said. "I'm thinking I'm going back to work with football, but (David Chandler) said Coach Hart asked if I could stay through the rest of the year. This is February, and we're getting married in July. But my fiancée said, 'If that's what you want to do, you should do it.'''
Anchored by freshman Darold Williamson, an eventual Olympic gold medalist, Baylor's 4x400-meter relay won the NCAA indoor title and finished second behind South Carolina by five-hundredths of a second in the NCAA outdoor meet.
"Honestly, it's probably still one of the most amazing races, if people want to watch Darold Williamson run," Kevin said of Williamson's 43.97-second split at the NCAA Outdoor. "That was an unbelievable anchor leg. I've never seen anything like it."
At the end of the season, Chandler urged Kevin to apply for a newly added position as the Bears' first full-time trainer for the track and field program.
"At first, there was some vanities there. 'Nah, I've got to go to medical school. I'm going to give my parents a new home, Lord, because I appreciate everything they've done and the sacrifices they've made,''' he said. "But when I prayed about it, I got this unbelievable peace and calm about it all. I already love Mike, I love Coach Hart from my time with him. DC (Chandler) is a great mentor for me. And for him to ask me that, I know it's sincere."
The Summer of 2002 was a big one for the Robinson family. Kevin and Crystal were married on July 27 and graduated together on Aug. 10, just in time for Kevin to start his full-time job at Baylor. While he started working on a master's in exercise physiology that fall, the load of handling 100-plus student-athletes and trying to do school work on top of that became overwhelming.
"I've still got medical school, my (MCAT) scores are good for five years. So, I can still do it if I choose," he said. "But if I was possibly still going to do medical school, I needed to slow down and focus on one thing. So, I slowed down and focused on athletic training. We were moving to an accreditation program, so I focused on getting my certification. That's kind of how I kept going. And then, of course, the rest is history."
Working with the track program during a golden era, Kevin got to witness the men's 4x400 relay winning 42-consecutive races and five of six national championships in a three-year period (2007-09); Jeremy Wariner sweeping the 400 meters at the 2004 NCAA indoor, NCAA outdoor and Olympics; the women claiming the team title at the 2017 Big 12 indoor meet; and a red-letter day in 2021 when KC Lightfoot, Ackera Nugent and Aaliyah Miller won national indoor titles in their respective events.
"I've worked with every Olympian here at Baylor," he said. "The unique thing about Michael Johnson is he's older than me, but he was the agent for Jeremy Wariner and Darold Williamson, so he and I became very close. He also worked with Team China and Team Japan, so he'd always be here at Baylor in the summer. Even Sanya Richards, she was at Texas for a couple of years, but she trained here for 10 years with Coach Hart."
Through the help of Benny Vaughn, a massage therapist from Fort Worth who still travels with USA Track & Field, Kevin also got a chance to work with Team USA for a couple of years before the birth of his son, Caleb, in 2007. A daughter, Kristina, came along three years later.
"It's been an eventful journey, and God has constantly been at the head of it," he said. "God's word is unique: 'In a man's heart, he plans his course, but his steps are ordered by the Lord.' And that's a great example of my life. I've had all these thoughts and all these things, and God has constantly said, 'This is where you need to be. This is what I want you to do.' I've tried my best to be humble and follow that. And it's been pretty amazing."
Whether it's work or his free time, everything is about family. Kevin is still close with his parents and sisters, Kim and Kendra, and went to Hawaii last year with Crystal to celebrate their 20th anniversary.
"My parents kept the kids, so it was a huge, huge blessing," he said.
The tightknit family with the track program includes the trio of Baylor graduates Ford, Robinson and associate head coach Stacey Smith, who have all been together for the last 21 years. "I think at the time, me, him and Stacey were the only minorities on our staff, so we all talked to each other a bunch,' Ford said. "We all had a little, I would say, dysfunction in our family. Stacy and I both had single moms, and we were all really close with our grandparents. We always talked about family and how we wanted something stable. For us, it seemed like track was that at the time."
In the sanctum of the training room, Kevin is a calming voice in the midst of the student-athletes' storms.
"You've got to understand that in this environment, it's pretty negative," he said, "because everyone gets hurt. How do you find a way to be positive with individuals who are going through probably the most challenging time in their life? Some of these kids have never had an injury a day in their life, and now here they are away from their mom and dad. It's an amazing opportunity to help them grow and give them some peace and comfort while navigating through probably one of the most trying times in their life."
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