A Nashville native who found a calling and went all in at Vanderbilt, Lindsy McLean, BA’60, ultimately helped modernize a profession and played a part in one of the greatest dynasties in professional football.
An alumnus of Nashville’s Hillsboro High School, he described himself as a “junior in charge of the football team’s first-aid kit” when he responded to an opportunity to sit in on a class on sports injuries taught by Vanderbilt trainer Joe Worden. He then spent his undergraduate years at Vanderbilt as a student-trainer learning from his mentor and fellow Hall of Fame inductee.
In 2018, he honored Worden with a bequest to Athletics. Allocated in two parts, it ensures that future athletic trainers are given every opportunity to succeed. The Athletic Training Room Hall of Fame Scholarship provides need-based student athletic trainer assistance, while the Athletic Training Room Endowment helps the department maintain a modern, state-of-the-art training facility.
“I’ve been very fortunate to be in the right places, but I never would have had those opportunities or inclinations if it hadn’t been for this community,” McLean said at the time of his bequest. “I would not have had the career I did without Vanderbilt.”
After graduating in 1960 and completing a physical therapy graduate program, he spent five years in California as head athletic trainer at UC Santa Barbara and later San Jose State, where he was also an assistant professor. McLean then spent 11 years at Michigan, during which time he was named the first chair of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Board of Certification and was instrumental in developing certification standards for the athletic training profession. He also helped steer a generation of talented trainers to Vanderbilt, including National Athletics’ Association Hall of Famer John Redgren.
In 1979, McLean moved from the world of college athletics to the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers. Arriving at almost the same time as legendary coach Bill Walsh, he was part of five Super Bowl winning teams during his 24 years with the franchise. In 2001, he was part of a staff honored as the Ed Block NFL Athletic Training Staff of the Year.
At the time of his retirement in 2003, he joined Bill Belichick and Charles Haley as the only people in the league who had day-to-day involvement in five Super Bowl championships.
He is a member of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Hall of Fame. And in 2023, he was one of three athletic trainers inducted into the Pro Football Athletic Trainers Society Hall of Fame. He remains an ardent Commodores fan and Nashville resident in retirement.
