The hire of Cruise Dunn fills one of the more critical behind-the-scenes roles for Coach Will Hall's Tulane football program this fall.
Quietly, the Tulane Green Wave brought in a big hire over the weekend that will be very critical to the success of the football team this upcoming season.
They announced that Cruise Dunn will be joining the program as the Assistant Athletic Director and Head Football Athletic Trainer.
Jon Melia previously served as the head athletic trainer for football for three seasons from 2023-26, which meant that he spent time under former coaches Willie Fritz and Jon Sumrall before finishing up in the spring with coach Will Hall.
Melia headed to the South Carolina Gamecocks for the same role at the beginning of June.
Dunn now takes over after six years of experience with the Southeastern Louisiana Lions where he was the assistant AD for sports medicine in baseball and football, working primarily with the baseball program.
He worked his way up after starting as an assistant athletic trainer back in 2020. Prior to his time at Southeastern, he was a graduate assistant athletic trainer for the Florida State Seminoles in baseball and football.
Head athletic trainers are essential to a program.
They are in charge of a comprehensive sports medicine program that prioritizes preventative care, emergency aid, rehabilitation, and typically, medical clearance often alongside team physicians and coaches for players to return to play.
They work closely with a program’s strength and conditioning staff to ultimately lower risk of injury through a variety of areas.
When a player goes down on the field, the head athletic trainer is one of, if not the first, running out to players to provide acute and immediate care, often emergency care.
A program can be talented, fully loaded, and have a favorable schedule. It can have the top quarterback and a stellar staff.
All of that essentially falls by the wayside if there aren’t a comprehensive strength and conditioning and athletic trainer program with the right personnel in place.
If those star players all get injured and can’t get back on the field, well, it doesn’t really matter how much NIL or investment was made in them.
For the Green Wave, they’ve been relatively healthy as the seasons go on.
It’s all but impossible to go a season avoiding all injury and health issues, but the preventative work can make a load of difference, as can the right rehab program to help get players back on the field as quickly and safely as possible.
For those reasons, Dunn is arguably one of the most essential hires of the offseason for Tulane football and Coach Hall.
