The Linfield Health and Human Performance department is welcoming a new assistant professor to their team.

Professor Cisco Reyes came to Oregon as a college freshman from Moscow, Idaho, to play baseball at Pacific University in Forest Grove. After receiving his undergraduate degrees in Exercise Science and Coaching he returned to Moscow and got his Masters in physical education from the University of Idaho and his Ph.D. in education.

“I wanted to be a part of a collegial department with top-notch academics in their respective fields of HHPA where everyone is supported by their colleagues. Because of my educational background and professional experiences, I wanted to come help bridge the gap between academics and athletics in order to fully educate, engage and empower HHPA students with evidence-based methods of Health and Human Performance,” Reyes said.

He emphasized that he wanted to teach at an institution with not only a strong athletic program, but also high caliber academics as well.

“I wanted to associate with a college with high athletic and academic success, as well as one that displays institutional organization and stability,” he said.

Reyes also does research about sports performance, writes and releases his findings, and speaks at conferences about the data he has collected.

“Currently I am examining Velocity-Based Training and how movement speed across a variety of different resistances in a given strength training exercise can aid human performance professionals to tailor resistance training programs towards specific neuromuscular goals, as well as using velocity-based measurements to control for neuromuscular fatigue and daily state of training readiness,” he said.

Apart from Linfield’s academic success, Reyes was also very attracted to Linfield athletics. “It is very hard to ignore Linfield’s athletic success and that is one reason why I wanted to be here at Linfield,” he said.

Students come from all over the country and the world to participate in Linfield athletics. In fact, 34 percent of all students play at least one of the 19 varsity sports offered, according to the Linfield fact sheet.

Wildcat football is one of Linfield’s many points of pride, just having achieved their 62nd consecutive winning season.

Since the athletic program began in 1896, Wildcats have won nine national championships and many conference titles.

“The athletic department is constantly raising the bar to continue to improve and to make the rest of the conference and region keep up with what Linfield athletics is doing. The coaches have high expectations for their student athletes both athletically and academically, which creates high-quality professionals who will represent what it truly means to be a Linfield Wildcat,” Reyes said.

The new professor is excited about continuing his research and teaching students about exercise strategy.

“As a new faculty member, I have been blown away by the support and warmth from everyone on campus. It makes coming to work easy and provides me a lot of ammunition to brag about the environment here at Linfield,” Reyes concluded.