By Chad Smith
“Plan your work, work your plan, and toss in just the right amount of luck.” That might be a good way to sum up the journey Dustin Little took to the pinnacle of his profession. The Castlewood, South Dakota native is the new Head Trainer for the San Francisco 49ers of the National Football League. I caught up to him in the middle of a workout at the Niners facility and Little said where he’s at is just now starting to sink in.
“It feels great,” he said in between reps. “It’s one of those things where you work hard for a long time with a plan in place, and then you get to where you wanna be. To get to this place in my career and my life, with my family, it’s just great to see all the sacrifices you’ve made, and the hard work get rewarded.”
This road to the San Francisco 49ers started during his college days at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. The young Coyote (pronounced KY-yote in South Dakota) started with Pre-Physical Therapy studies in 2004. Little always knew he didn’t want to spend his career indoors. Sports had been a big part of his life growing up in his hometown and he wanted to work in some kind of a sports setting. He took a non-traditional approach to get there.
“I went five years for undergraduate work at USD and another three years to get my Doctorate in Physical Therapy,” he said. “After that, I made the unusual decision to go back to athletic training school for a master’s degree. At the time, that career path was unheard of. However, it made sense because I wanted to get dual credentials in physical therapy and athletic training.
“During physical therapy schooling, I also took the test for strength and conditioning certification,” Little added. “I’ve always tried to make sure my decisions supported my career goal and made me well-rounded. I wanted to be well-versed in a lot of different areas.”
As a part of his education, Little did a student internship with the Denver Broncos. Being a little older than the other interns because the years of schooling he’d already put in, really helped to give him a leg up.
“In 2013,” Little remembered, “I was between my first and second year of athletic training school. I called it my ‘five-week job interview.’ It really hit me the first time I walked in their door that I was in an NFL facility.
“It hit me even more when I was in the cafeteria one day,” he added. “You only had about five minutes to cram down lunch and get back to work. (Then-starting quarterback) Payton Manning walked by that day. That’s when it sank in that I was working in the National Football League.”
For people who don’t know, Little said a summer internship is a “16-hour workday,” with a lot of grunt work to do. He was coming in as a full-time physical therapist, who’d been putting in his time at a clinic over the previous year. He took it as a test.
“They wanna know if you have an ego and are you willing to do the grunt work,” Little said. “Are you willing to put 16-hour days in for seven days a week over the course of the internship? I’d left my then-three-month-old son and wife back at home for this opportunity. You find out quickly if you want to work in the NFL or if you just think you do.
“It’s true work,” he adds. “You aren’t just working a 40-hour week and asking for occasional time off. It’s a lot of long days. For example, as we’re talking, I’ve been here at the 49er’s facility since 4:30 a.m. it’s now 5:30 p.m. and I’m not done yet. It’s not just being on TV on Sundays.”
Interns don’t get to do much actual caring for players. Little said his case was unusual in that he could work with players rehabbing from injuries, thanks to his PT degree. Interns set up water, tear down water, hydrate the players, the take care of the cleaning up, re-cleaning up, and “then we clean up some more.”
“I figured out during the internship that this was what I wanted to do,” Little said. “I just loved the challenge of working with professional athletes. They don’t have a lot of physical limitations, so you have to be creative in challenging them physically. Getting these guys where they need to be is something I enjoy.”
Some of the other interns were 19 and 20-years old, while Little came in at 25, married, and the father of his first child. He grew up on a farm in South Dakota, so Little had a good idea of what hard work was and what it would take to succeed. “I was there for a five-week job interview and that’s what it eventually turned out to be,” he said.
“I demonstrated my capabilities, kept my mouth shut, and worked hard,” Little added. “I think they noticed that. At the end of 2014, I was getting ready to graduate with my master’s. The Buffalo Bills were creating a position and talked to then-director of sports medicine at South Dakota State University, Owen Stanley. He told them, ‘I have a kid right here for you.’
“I had an interview with the Bills on a Monday-Tuesday,” Little said. “Steven Antonopulos, Director of Sports Medicine for the Broncos, was listed as a reference and knew I was out there. The following Friday, the then-current physical therapist for the Broncos came in to see Antonopulos and said he’s going to resign. Steve called me that Friday at 6:30 a.m. to tell me that PT had just quit and said he’s offering it to me right then.”
The interesting thing came as Little called Buffalo to let them know he would be taking the job with Denver. “The guy I called with Buffalo actually said he was going to offer me the job there the night before, but he just got busy,” he said. “He’d decided to offer me the job with Buffalo that day. Funny how things work out.”
Needless to say, the feeling that Little had after getting the call from Denver was through-the-roof. “I put in so much work to get here,” Little said. “You’re taking it in but it’s also surreal, like ‘this is really happening?’ It took a while to sink in. You’re just thankful for what you did and the people who helped you get there.”
Little stayed with the Broncos for five years, almost to the day. His goal was always to be a head trainer in the NFL. The San Francisco 49ers had begun reaching out to other organizations in the NFL and were looking for good people who might fill their head trainer position. Little’s name got thrown into the mix for the spot.
“All you can ask for is an opportunity,” he said. “I ended up coming out to San Francisco for my first interview. Did a second interview on the phone before heading out to the combine to meet with 49ers personnel. They called me the last day of the combine and offered me the position.”
When I first caught up with him, Little had been with the San Francisco 49ers for about 10 days. His wife (Bailey) and four kids will join him as soon as possible. By the middle of March, the Little kids were 6, 5, 3, and 1. Little says he goes to a job, but Bailey is the one who “goes to work.” Now that they’ve found a landing spot, Little says he’s had time to reflect on the journey from the cornfields of South Dakota all the way out to the NFL.
“I never looked at as a small-town guy coming all the way out to San Francisco,” he said. “My mindset has never been to hold myself back because I come from a small town. You can’t set those kinds of limitations on yourself.”
In fact, growing up in South Dakota and playing different sports actually will help him be even more successful. “Absolutely, some of the guys in Denver really liked that about me,” he recalled. “I’m not quite the normal looking trainer when I walk in the room because I’m 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds. I’ve played sports, I understand rehabbing, strength and conditioning, plus I can throw the football if they need me to.
“I’m not the athlete I was but I still have capabilities,” Little added. “The players really like it when you can demonstrate things. These guys are competitive. If you challenge them on an exercise, do it better than they do, it gets them a little fired up.”