Brendan Espinal

“Growing up, I was diagnosed with a mild form of spina bifida. I went to a lot of aquatic therapy, a lot of physical therapy,” says Brendan Espinal. “Gradually becoming a better athlete because of it really pushed me to pursue physical therapy.”

Espinal is modest about his athletic achievements, but visit sagegators.com, and you’ll see he helped lead Russell Sage College’s baseball team to its first regular-season title in 2024 (when the baseball program is just three years old) and that the Empire 8 athletic conference named him Player of the Year at the end of the 2024 season. 

He is also accomplished academically, making the dean’s list regularly as a Health Sciences major and now pursuing a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree at RSC. 

“Every time I met a physical therapist, they were from Russell Sage,” Espinal says of what put the school on his radar after he earned an associate degree at SUNY Adirondack. “Also, baseball played a huge role.”

Espinal described his first visit to RSC: He was down the street from the Troy campus with his girlfriend who had a hair appointment and decided to see if anyone from the school could speak with him on short notice. Baseball coach Nick Pontari met him right away. “He showed me he really wanted me to be on this team,” Espinal says. 

And that welcoming, easygoing energy continued throughout his transfer and student experience. “All my credits came over,” he says, “and immediately when I came here, my first experience was how awesome the teachers were.”

He says he finished Associate Professor Kelli Tamvada’s Research Methods class with a much better understanding of scientific writing and writing in general, and the study advice he received in his first semester from Associate Professor John Tine is helping him succeed in the DPT program, too. 

“I would like to give a shout out to the employees at McKinstry and Buchman,” Espinal adds, referring to the dining hall and cafe on the Troy campus. “Every time I go in, it’s not like I’m just getting food, I have a conversation with them. It goes a long way.”

Alumni have also positively influenced his education. He appreciates the RSC graduates who mentored him as he completed required observation hours at a local PT practice, introduce themselves when he wears shirts with the college logo around town, and he especially appreciates the alumni who support scholarship and textbook funds for students. 

“From athletics to academics, Sage has given me so much.” he says. ”When I am done here, I will be giving money back.”

Espinal anticipates completing his physical therapy doctorate in 2027. As of now, he would like to be a physical therapist who works with athletes, but he still looks forward to getting experience with other populations during clinical fieldwork.  

“I’ve heard that you might come into the program thinking you want to do something, and then when you are on your clinical rotations, you find a passion for something else as you learn more,” he says, reiterating what drew him to the physical therapy profession in the first place.

“That’s my key goal, to make sure that someone is having a better quality of life, walking away better than they came in.”