OL Reign Expands Performance and Medical Team to Support On-Field Success
OL Reign has expanded and enhanced its sports science and medical team ahead of the 2021 NWSL season, intent on improving player performance while minimizing long-term injuries. That team, comprised of Director of Performance Andrew Wiseman and Director of Rehabilitation Nicole Surdyka, who will be supported by Athletic Trainer Kathryn Johnson and Massage Therapist Desmond Diaz, hopes to give head coach Farid Benstiti an abundance of choice in player selection.
“We have the job of giving the manager a headache by keeping everyone available,” Wiseman said. “Nicole and I, if we can keep the players available, that’s a good problem for Farid to have. That’s always the goal, really, the availability of players. That can come a number of ways, through recovery, or keeping them injury-free. Every player has different demands, but I think one of the cornerstones of sports science is pushing players to their potential so that their performance improves.
“That can be difficult to measure, but it’s always the goal.”
Wiseman joined OL Reign in December from Utah Royals FC, where he worked as the club’s Head of Performance since July of 2019. Prior to the NWSL, Wiseman worked as a strength and conditioning coach for English side Exeter City FC, and spent three years as a strength coach and sports scientist at Scottish powerhouse Celtic FC’s women’s team.
Wiseman credits his time at Celtic with the chance to become familiar of the demands of a top-tier club.
“You really get a sense of what it takes to be at the top of your game working in that environment,” Wiseman said.
Wiseman holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Sports and Exercise Science with First Class Honors from the Manchester Metropolitan University, a Graduate Diploma from the International Society of Sports Nutrition and is a licensed Exos Performance Specialist. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Organizational Health and Well-Being at Lancaster University.
Director of Rehabilitation Nicole Surdyka also joined the club in December 2020. Nicole grew up in a soccer family, committing to play college soccer for St. John’s University in New York. As a senior in high school, however, she suffered a fracture of her tibia and fibula that jeopardized her college career. Surdyka credits her experience recovering from injury with inspiring her to pursue a career helping other athletes do the same.
“I went through a period of being worried about my future and whether I would be able to play soccer in college or even go to college the following year,” Surdyka said. “Luckily, my college coach was great and understanding and kept my scholarship available for me. I went through a long period of recovery with my physical therapist, Sharon Wentworth. She opened my eyes to what physical therapy was as a career and how it can help athletes come back from injury.”
After playing college soccer for St. John’s, Surdyka graduated from Emory University as a Doctor of Physical Therapy, excited about the prospect of helping other athletes chase their dreams after injury. Surdyka is also a National Strength and Conditioning Association Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS). She holds a FIFA Diploma of Football Medicine.
After years working in a private practice with athletes spanning from high school to the NFL and the Olympics, Surdyka is excited to continue working close to the sport she loves.
“This has been an opportunity that I’ve been looking for a while now,” Surdyka said. “The year I started PT school was the year the NWSL started. It was hard as a student to look forward into my career and imagine what it could look like. In women’s sport, there hasn’t always been this level of investment in the team behind the team. It’s still growing even now. As a woman who works in sports and women’s sports, it’s often hard to look forward and imagine what’s possible in your career. I’d be lying if I said I always envisioned myself working for a women’s pro team, because it wasn’t really too big of an option while I was starting out. The fact that the growth of the women’s game has aligned with my growth as a professional might be part luck, part fate. It’s definitely something I’m incredibly excited about. Already, I’m feeling more fulfillment in my day-to-day role than I ever have in my career.”
Wiseman’s first taste of the NWSL came at an OL Reign match. The Hertfordshire, England native was in Seattle in 2016 and saw the club play against the Houston Dash at Memorial Stadium, accompanied by U.S. Women’s National Team High Performance Coach Dawn Scott and U.S. WNT Performance Coach Ellie Maybury. When an offer from Laura Harvey to join the Royals near the end of the 2019 Women’s World Cup three years later, he jumped at the chance.
Both Wiseman and Surdyka emphasized the importance of supporting players not only physically, but mentally as the club gears up for a new season.
“The decision that we made as a coaching staff was to try and continue as close to our preseason plans as we could from a performance and conditioning perspective,” Wiseman said when asked about lessons learned in 2020. “Everything that I had looked to prescribe throughout the preseason, I was set to continue. The remote communication required a lot of new skills to be learned. What I learned personally was understanding those individual relationships with the players and how they were thinking. The conditioning was one side of it, but being able to support the players and show that we were there to help them was huge. I was able to say ‘I’m always here to listen,’ and mean it. It was a difficult time for everyone, because there was so much uncertainty. Once we heard whispers about a tournament and realized we were training for something, it gave us a big boost.”
“We want to make it so that all they have to worry about is soccer,” added Surdyka. “We’re going to get them fit, we’re going to utilize injury reduction strategies. Our health and performance team is there to make sure that the athletes can focus on performing on the field knowing that they’ll be fit enough to face the demands of the schedule. We want them to feel like they are strong enough and that they’ll be able to perform optimally. That would be a success for me. At the end of the season, I want to be able to look back and I want the athletes to feel like they were given every opportunity to succeed on the field and didn’t feel like their fitness and their health were barriers to success.”