Faculty Excellence

Michael Jones: From the stages of Broadway to the sidelines of the Arena Football League.

After taking his final bow as a singer in Broadway musicals, Michael Jones set off to pursue his dream of becoming a sports therapist. To start his new career off in the right direction, Michael enrolled in the Clinical Massage Therapy program at The Soma Institute.

Upon graduation, he found himself with the choice of two career opportunities: a massage therapist position with the Gottlieb Memorial Hospital Health and Fitness Center or a teaching position at The Soma Institute. Never one for compromise, Mike decided to choose both.

At the Gottlieb Health and Fitness Center, Michael practiced clinical, deep tissue, and sports massage. Due to his professional skills, Michael has worked with the following athletic organizations as a team therapist: U.S. Soccer; Chicago Rush AFL team; various professional athletes from the NHL, NFL, MLB, MLS and PGA; the UIC Flames sports medicine team; and Chicago Marathon elite athletes.

Michael is currently a team therapist for the Athletico’s Dance Medicine program, and he actively works with world-renowned companies like the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. These companies host some of the best athletes in the world, and Michael is the lead therapist of their medical team.

In addition to Michael’s clinical practice, he is involved in a massage and kinesiotape research project at UIC. The Human Anatomy and Physiology Society sponsor the project, and Michael will be published in their journal this coming May 2010.

Michael has also been published in the Athletico e-scorecard newsletter on massage and performing arts and put together technique manuals for his “Thai for the table” and “PESM: the ProNB technique” courses.

We are proud of Michael's ongoing work as a Soma instructor, and applaud the sports massage innovations he has contributed to the field of clinical massage therapy.