Falling for Dak

1

The moment I stepped foot in the Dallas Cowboys facility, I instantly fell in love with it. My journey with the professional football team started last year, when I had just finished college.

I was to be the leading medical trainer for the team. I had started out as a "trial" for three weeks, but after a while all the players gained respect for me when they saw how quickly I could fix up their teammates. The coaches caught on as well, and that got me the permanent job.

I walked into the brand new practice facility with enthusiasm. No one was more excited than I was for the season to officially start.
I was almost to my office when I felt two pairs of arms wrap around me. A huge grin spread on my face.

"Dez! Lucky!" I exclaimed with delight.
"Jules!" they called out, burying me in their arms.
I laughed and turned around hugging each of them properly.

"How was the offseason?" I asked after we had calmed down a little bit.
"It was great how was yours?" Dez asked.
"It was good, but I've been waiting for season to start."
"So have I," Lucky chimed in.
"Meet any nice girls while you were out Dez? Luck?"
"That's something we should be asking you."
I looked down smiling.

"Come on Jules, you're such a great girl. I'm sure many guys would love to have you. Not without going through us first of course."
I looked up again.
"Thanks, but I'm not really looking for that right now."
"Right. Totally," Lucky replied sarcastically.
"Alright, alright, ya'll need to be going," I said quickly pushing them in the direction of the field.
"This is not over!" Dez yelled. 

Dez Bryant and Lucky Whitehead had taken me under their wing when I first started at the Dallas Cowboys football program. They quickly became friends with me.

I unlocked my office door and walked in. I grinned as I walked through the office and into the training room. The training facility was huge. There was a computer in the office that held the health records of every player in the program. It showed every method of rehabilitation I used in detail. The actual training room had many treatment tables and ice machines. My favorite part was the rehab center through the sliding doors at the back of the room.

Today was the first training camp practice of the summer. The rookies that had been at their specific camp would be joining the veterans for the first time. The thing that was troubling me was Tony Romo. As our starting quarterback, he obviously had done many great things, but there was a huge concern for Tony's health. His last season was abruptly ended when he broke his collarbone. The year before that he hurt his shoulder. Before that it was his back.

It was hard for me to see him put himself through hours of practice and rehab, just to get hurt again a few weeks later. I did regular checkups on him, just to make sure nothing was seriously wrong. I just hoped he would be strong enough to stay uninjured through the first game, though I had my doubts.

"Julia!"

I was shaken out of my thoughts by Coach Garrett's voice.
"Hey coach! How have you been?" I exclaimed. We gave each other a friendly hug.
"Julia, how many times have I told you to call me Jason? You're not a player," he replied with a playful smile.

"Sorry Jason." We pulled out of the hug.
"So before I started practice I wanted to talk to you about Ezekiel Elliot and Dak Prescott. They're new so I wanted them to meet you."
"Alright, I can do that. Do you know if they've had any previous injuries I need to worry about?"

"No, but I know Zeke is having some trouble with his hamstring. He tweaked it a little bit during practice."
"Okay, I'll probably put him through some light rehab today."

"Okay thanks Julia. I have to get to practice but I presume you have everything under control here. I'm going to send Zeke over to you first so you can check him out during practice. I'll send Dak after practice."
"No problem."

I gave him one last wave. I would be lying if I said I didn't want to meet the new rookies. Ezekiel Elliot was the 4th overall draft pick and Dak Prescott, though he was picked in the 4th round, seemed to have a lasting effect on the whole team.

After an hour I heard a knock on my door. I assumed this was Zeke.
"Hi, come in," I said to him.
As he shook my hand, I realized he looked a lot bigger in person. One thing I noticed immediately was that his shirt was cut like a crop top. I remembered back to the draft when Zeke had worn a cut off dress shirt. I laughed so hard when he walked on the red carpet.

"Do you always wear your shirts like that?" I joked.
"Yep. You don't like it?"
"No, I really do. It makes you look very confident," I replied smiling.
He returned my smile with his own sly grin.

"So Ms. Brown.." he started off.
"You can call me Julia. Or Jules. That's what everyone else calls me."
"Oh okay. So Jules, do you know about my hamstring?"

"Yes I know, and I need to know what exactly you can and can't do."
"I can run, but jumping and going lateral is a little hard. It gets stiff when I try that."
"So your having hamstring tightness then."
When he nodded, I knew what to do.

"Okay, this is very common. It won't take long to fix. You need to do certain stretches, especially static stretches, to loosen up that muscle."
I motioned for him to follow my lead.

"Put your foot up on a flat surface and keep your bottom leg straight. Now lean forward."
I smiled when I saw him struggling to hold the stretch.
"Yeah, it's going to feel tight and uncomfortable at first, but if you do this multiple times a day, your hamstring will gradually loosen."

He did that stretch a little longer and I told him to move to the next one.
"Okay so I'm going to need you to get on the table for this one."
Once he lay on his back on the table I lifted his leg while pushing down the other.
"Keep you leg straight in the air. Don't bend. Now tell me when it starts to hurt."

When he motioned to me that he was starting to feel pain, I eased up. I repeated this stretch multiple times, his leg going further and further each time. I took that as an immediate sign of improvement. After I showed him more of the stretches, and gave him a sheet of paper that listed every stretch to do and the duration of time.

"Thank you Jules," he breathed after I was done stretching him.
"Yeah, no problem Zeke. Keep coming in this week so I can evaluate you every day. I can help stretch you again too," I replied with a smile.
After going over what he should and shouldn't do during practice this week, Zeke left to finish practice.