Blue Jays hire Nikki Huffman as head trainer

Photo Credit: Toronto Blue Jays

December 22, 2017

Toronto Blue Jays Official Press Release

High Performance Staff Changes in Toronto

The Toronto Blue Jays have made the following changes to its High Performance team to support the Major League team. 

Nikki Huffman will now assume the position of Head Athletic Trainer for the Toronto Blue Jays.  Huffman, who enters her third season with the organization, will be supported by Assistant Head Trainers Jose Ministral and Voon Chong who have both been internally promoted to join the Toronto staff.  Scott Peters will now serve as the full-time Assistant Physical Therapist, after serving in a part-time role last year with Toronto.

Huffman holds a doctorate degree in physical therapy from the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences, with a specialty focus in manual therapy.  She also obtained a bachelor’s degree in athletic training from Averett University where she was a two-sport athlete in basketball and lacrosse, and an Academic All-American. 

Her career has included work with the Atlanta Falcons Physical Therapy organization, and completing both a Post Professional Sports Residency and Division I Sports Fellowship at Duke University. In her time at Duke, she served as a consultant for professional athletes in the Michael K. Krzyewski Human Performance Laboratory and was instrumental in the rehabilitation of Blue Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman’s left knee surgery (torn ACL). 

In 2018, Orthopedic Surgeon Dr. John Theodoropoulos will serve as the lead physician for the team with Dr. Jason Smith continuing to assist the club as a consulting Orthopedic Surgeon and providing game coverage.  Returning to Toronto to oversee strength and conditioning will be Head of Strength & Conditioning, Donovan Santas, who will join Major League Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coordinator, Scott Weberg.