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About the Huffines Institute

About the Huffines InstituteIn 2019, the Huffines Institute was officially 20 years old!  The efforts that led to the creation of the Institute in 2003, actually began in 1999 when Dr. Jack Wilmore and several faculty members at Texas A&M University began to meet with the intention of connecting the science and practice of sports medicine and human performance more closely. This original effort made such an impression that in 2003, JL and Sydney Huffines, due to their life-long support of exercise and health, became the original naming benefactors of the Institute. Dr. Steve Crouse took over as Interim Director at that time and capably stewarded the Institute until 2010 when Dr. Tim Lightfoot became the Director of the Institute. In 2012, the Huffines Institute founded the Texas A&M Coaching Academy, with Texas A&M athletic legend Dr. John Thornton named as it's first Director. In 2017, Debbie and Mike (’73) Hilliard made a substantial financial gift that will allow the Institute to continue to grow, expand our educational support efforts, as well as supporting our athletic testing objective.  We are really excited that in 2021, the McFerrin family made a substantial financial gift which resulted in the renaming of the Coaching Academy to the Thornton-McFerrin Coaching Academy, celebrating the legacy of both the McFerrin family and the contributions of Dr. John Thornton to the coaching profession.  

Since our beginning, the Huffines Institute’s mission has evolved to connect exercise scientists, practitioners, and the public to help spread the word that activity and exercise are the cheapest and most efficient forms of disease prevention and symptom alleviation.  We believe that the Institute’s mission will lead not only to better athletes, but also to better health in the general public.  That’s one of the reasons that we not only have an extensive mission to help athletes become better performers, but also why our public outreach efforts through our podcasts, Hilliard Discussions, and online text articles continue to be viewed by users around the world.

We invite you to join our community that is dedicated to investigating, applying, and engaging in a dialogue about sports medicine and human performance. We invite you to join this dialog by participating as much or as little as you want. You can easily listen or watch any of our podcasts and use our exclusive content. But we hope you won’t stop there.

Connect to us through our blogs, or Twitter to stay up with the daily happenings at the Huffines Institute. Better yet, join us as a member and get access to grant programs, travel resources, and early access to events, speakers, and new content. We are working to make access to Sports Medicine and Human Performance easy for you and the World.