The New York Giants have a new head athletic trainer for the first time since 1981.
Adam Bennett, who has been the athletic trainer at the University of Miami since 2023, is taking over for Ronnie Barnes, who has been with the Giants’ training department since 1976 and the head athletic trainer since 1981.
Barnes will remain with the Giants as their Senior Vice President of Medical Services, a position he has held since 2009.
Prior to Miami, Bennett worked at Special Operations Command Headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., where he worked with injured service members.
“In athletics, we see the injury happen 99 times out of 100. In the military, you’re dealing with injuries that might be six, 10, 12 years old and they just didn’t deal with it because they were going on deployment after deployment and they had to go, go, go,” Bennett said in 2024 interview with the Hurricanes’ official website. “So, you’re dealing with more chronic injuries and your evaluation skills improve and change, which is a great way to learn. You’re learning hands-on, in that moment. …
“It’s hard to really express the appreciation for what they do for us, but it was meaningful to help those men and women out. It was a different challenge. I learned a lot. I feel like I had worked in football for nine or 10 years by then, so seeing it from a different perspective and learning what [service members] go through and learning the risks they deal with while training and deploying, the injuries they deal with, was eye-opening. It was a different perspective.”
Bennett served as an assistant athletic trainer at the University of Minnesota in 2016 and moved on to Florida Atlantic in 2017, where he was the head athletic trainer until 2021.