YORK, Pa. — Editor's note: The above video is from 2023.
The Kansas City Chiefs are back in the Super Bowl for the second straight season and the fourth time in the last five years.
If they can defeat the San Francisco 49ers Sunday in Super Bowl LVIII, the Chiefs will have won their third title over that span.
To have a run that successful, it takes coaching, talent, and -- more often than not -- good luck with injuries.
That's where a pair of Central Pennsylvania natives come in.
The Chiefs' vice president of sports medicine and performance , Rick Burkholder, is a native of Carlisle in Cumberland County.
And one of his top assistant trainers, Julie Frymyer, hails from Lititz in Lancaster County. She's a Warwick High School grad.
Last year, Frymer earned a special shout-out from Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who fought through an ankle injury to lead the Chiefs over Cincinnati in the AFC Championship Game and went on to be voted the MVP of the Super Bowl, when KC knocked off the Philadelphia Eagles.
When speaking to the media prior to the Super Bowl, Mahomes credited the training staff for helping him to get back on the field when he suffered an injury during the Chiefs' win over the Bengals.
"Julie did a great job in giving me enough range in mobility that I was able to protect myself and at the end of the game there I had a run to get the first down and got us into field goal range," Mahomes said then.
Frymyer graduated from Warwick in 2001 and studied at West Chester University and in Florida. She served as an athletic trainer at Butler University, Towson University and Princeton before joining the Chiefs in 2018.
Burkholder has served in his current position with the Chiefs since 2018. Prior to that, he was Kansas City's head athletic trainer. He served in the same position under head coach Andy Reid from 2005 to 2012, when Reid was coach of the Philadelphia Eagles.
When Reid was fired by Philly and took over with the Chiefs, Burkholder followed him to Kansas City.
Burkholder, a former assistant trainer with the Pittsburgh Steelers prior to his move to Philadelphia, is following a path first tread by his father, Rich, who has spent more than six decades as head athletic trainer at Carlisle High School.
Rich, who is 86, is a pioneer in the field of athletic training.
"I couldn't have picked a better profession to be in," he said last year. "You work with kids, you're around the sports all year, I never have to pay a fee to get into the game. The thing that's great about this, I enjoy doing this and they pay me for it!"