On Monday, Kevin O’Neill sent out 100 e-mails of thanks. And goodbye. Some went to the head coaches he worked with like Jimmy Johnson, Nick Saban and Butch Davis. Some went to assistant coaches or doctors from his 44 years as a college and NFL trainer.
Some, too, went to the trainers he worked with, including seven current NFL trainers who once learned under O’Neill. We talk of coaches having trees, like family trees of assistants who worked under them. But as long-time New York Giants trainer Ronnie Barnes said last year when seeing O’Neill’s tree of head and assistant trainers: “That’s not a tree.