Tag: Dean Kleinschmidt

Former Saints trainer Dean Kleinschmidt recognized by Pro Football Hall of Fame

Former New Orleans Saints athletic trainer Dean Kleinschmidt was recognized by the Pro Football Hall of Fame with its 2024 Award of Excellence:

Here’s some well-deserved recognition for longtime New Orleans Saints athletic trainer Dean Kleinschmidt. The Pro Football Hall of Fame honored him Thursday with its 2024 Award of Excellence for his efforts in treating athletes and helping to cultivate the game. He’s spent his years away from the NFL working with the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala.

“I’ve enjoyed 43 years in the NFL,” Kleinschmidt told Mobile Bay Magazine’s Breck Pappas. “But I’ve really loved 50 years in Mobile.”

Kleinschmidt was with the Saints from 1969 to 2000, having worked with a host of future Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees: Rickey Jackson, Willie Roaf, Sam Mills, and many other great players, establishing some long-lasting friendships. At times early in his career he was tasked with watching Archie Manning’s sons Peyton, Eli, and Cooper while their father received treatment or worked out at the team practice facility.

“We’re in that business of trying to speed healing,” Kleinschmidt said in back in 1998, per the Herald Times’ Mike Wright. “We do everything we can to get these guys ready, within safety limits, to play on the next deadline, which is noon the following Sunday.”

He continued to work in the NFL after leaving the Saints, most notably joining the Detroit Lions as their coordinator of athletic medicine. Kleinschmidt retired from the NFL in 2015 and has since been enshrined at the Saints’ team Hall of Fame as well as the National Athletic Trainers Association Hall of Fame. Now the Pro Football Hall of Fame is making room for him, too.

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Former Lions athletic trainer earns honor from Pro Football Hall of Fame

Former Lions athletic trainer Dean Kleinschmidt earns honor from Pro Football Hall of Fame

On Wednesday afternoon the Pro Football Hall of Fame announced its Award of Excellence winners, and former Detroit Lions athletic trainer Dean Kleinschmidt is one of the recipients.

The Award of Excellence, first handed out in 2022, goes to assistant coaches, athletic trainers, equipment managers, film and video directors and public relations directors. The Hall does not participate in the nomination or voting process.

Kleinschmidt served as the Lions head athletic trainer from 2007 to 2014. Over that time he helped a lot of key players on the team stay on the field while also extending their careers. The prime years of Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson saw them take some brutal hits, but the trainers department always took care of them and they helped usher in a new era of Lions football.

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Kleinschmidt’s career was more than just Detroit, however — it spanned 40 years in the NFL. In a league that jokingly is referred to as Not For Long, Kleinschmidt had a lasting career and is a deserving recipient of the Award of Excellence from the Pro Football Hall of Fame.