There’s an injured player on the field.
Virginia Tech athletic trainers rush the scene with first aid in hand, yet it’s not a joint that’s ailing. They toss aside Ace bandages and athletic tape to uncover a small cylinder labeled Save-A-Tooth, an emergency tooth-preserving system.
“It’s a solution that’s designed to keep the tooth roots alive,” said Mike Goforth, director of athletic training.
If an athlete has his pearly whites whacked, the product can maintain a stray for 24 hours.
The Tech training staff has yet to bottle an incisor, Goforth said, but it’s a feasible crisis that would be handed off to the athletics department’s on-call dentists, John Robertson and Jay Bass.
Robertson and Bass run a local practice, Family Dentistry, and have served the athletics department since Goforth contacted Robertson two years ago.
Robertson’s daughter, Heather Lafon, had just started working in the athletics department, and word spread of her father’s prior involvement with sports.
When Robertson’s son, Michael, played football for Blacksburg High School years ago, Family Dentistry offered to make the entire team’s mouth guards.
“I think it was a community service-type thing to do,” Robertson said. “Just giving something back to the school over there.”
Michael has since graduated college, but Robertson and Bass continue to assist the local high school each season.
Shouldering the Tech athletics department hasn’t added outstanding responsibilities either.
“Really we haven’t had a whole lot of sports-related injuries,” Robertson said, “because they are good about having the athletes wear the mouth guards and safety protection.”
Family Dentistry also makes Tech’s mouth guards. The most common Tech sports that utilize them are football, lacrosse and wrestling.
At the beginning of football season, for example, a Family Dentistry assistant will accompany either Robertson or Bass for a couple mornings in the athletic department. Their players bite down on a specialized material to create impressions of their teeth. With those impressions, Family Dentistry makes hardened molds of players’ mouths.
“We’re lucky in that we’re usually just making the molds for the new players,” Robertson said, “because the previous years had them made (already).”
The athletics department handles the rest of the process, Goforth said, although Family Dentistry provides the necessary materials. Goforth and his staff heat-vacuum square orange “blanks” over the teeth molds, then trim the excess to yield a final product.
Goforth said current mouth guards are a considerable advancement over previous models. Once bulky objects that prevented clear speech, mouth guards are now light, and their slender dimensions hardly obstruct communication.
Yet it’s not guaranteed athletes will remember to wear them constantly.
In the football game against Miami this season, Tech quarterback Tyrod Taylor was mixed in a pile of bodies. Goforth said as everyone writhed to stand, Taylor had his helmet ripped off. Taylor’s misplaced mouth guard failed to prevent the chipping of one of his front teeth.
“Whether it’s a boy or a girl — a college-aged student,” Goforth said, “they don’t want to look in that mirror and see a chipped tooth staring back at them.”
Dentist Robertson said Taylor’s fix was relatively simple.
“Sometimes you can have a tooth that’ll either get knocked out or broken into the pulp of the tooth,” Robertson said, “but this was just an edge of the tooth that needed to be bonded.”
There’s a little extra pressure when mending notable faces like Taylor’s, Robertson said, especially when the procedure involves visible teeth. With athletes pictured in numerous media outlets, he hopes no one will question his work.
“You worry,” Robertson said, “is his tooth going to look funny and people are going to wonder ‘What’s with that?’”
But since serious injuries are a rarity, Family Dentistry also serves as a hygiene resource for athletes.
“We have a lot of athletes that come here that haven’t seen dentists in years,” Goforth said, “so these guys are great at helping take care of those needs also.”
And Robertson said Family Dentistry appreciates the visitor influx.
“We always like seeing new patients,” he said, “and we like seeing the college kids.”
It’s infrequent that Tech covers the student bills, though. Most Family Dentistry procedures go directly through athletes’ insurance. If it’s inadequate, though, the athletic department allocates funds to assist payment. The NCAA also has available reserves that are distributed based on need.
Robertson and Bass don’t get special treatment, either. Their office doesn’t boast free Tech sports gear signed by prominent names, and they attend athletic events with tickets they purchased themselves.
One might wonder what the appeal is, then.
“I think just because we’re Tech fans,” Robertson said with a laugh, “and kind of part of a Tech community here in Blacksburg.”
Bass, a Tech graduate, recently submitted his order for basketball season tickets. He played the sport throughout his high school career and coincidentally suffered a chipped tooth.
“If I’d had a mouthpiece,” he said, “it wouldn’t have happened.”