Great article appearing in the
2010 February/March issue of Athletic Management magazine.
Student-athletes all readily understand the importance of the athletic training staff. But does everyone else?
By Shantey Hill
Shantey Hill is Associate Athletic Director and Senior Woman Administrator at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, where she formerly served as Director of Sports Medicine and Head Athletic Trainer. She can be reached at:Shantey.Hill@liu.edu.
Like most athletic administrators, my days are often full, and arriving to the office at 6 a.m. to get a jump on all the work that awaits me is a normal occurrence. One morning when arriving early, however, I noticed more lights on in the field house than usual. Now I know this seems like the beginning of some sort of mystery story, but you can rest easy it is not.
The extra lights belonged to the athletic training room, where three student-athletes, each from a different sport, were rehabbing with our Head Athletic Trainer. This should not have come as a surprise to me, but rather a reminder that no matter how frequently I put in long days, members of our sports medicine staff are usually the first to arrive and the last to leave.
Athletic trainers are often the most dedicated employees within an athletics department, but they can also be the most overlooked. Generally, athletic administrators have a good understanding of the basic athletic training job description, but do you know about all the unseen work they do? More importantly, are you aware of all the knowledge they possess and how they might provide insight into improving your overall department?
BEYOND THE CALL
Although there are no typical days in the profession, an athletic trainer usually arrives early for morning rehabilitation, spends hours on the phone with physicians, insurers, and service providers, then begins the afternoon rush of preparing for practices, including taping and stretching athletes. After providing practice coverage, it's on to post-practice treatments and catching up with injury reports.
This daily agenda changes often, and is not inclusive of all that athletic trainers do. In reality, the sports medicine staff juggles the health and welfare needs of hundreds of student-athletes every day, often without sufficient resources and staffing. Ratios of student-athletes to athletic trainers can be 50:1, and at smaller institutions, the number can be even higher.
If those numbers don't jump off the page at you, let me explain why they should. Let's take the process of handling a season-ending injury as an example of one thing athletic trainers do. When student-athletes suffer this type of injury, chances are they will need x-rays, MRIs, surgery, follow-up visits with the physician, and months of rehabilitation, all of which are overseen by the athletic trainer.
But what goes unseen, and what an athletic trainer will never tell you, is all the additional work that he or she does in this situation. With parents out of town, student-athletes turn to athletic trainers for a multitude of tasks needing to be handled with this type of injury.
Athletic trainers frequently become the method of transportation for student-athletes to get to these appointments, often using their own vehicles. They are the ones who spend hours in hospitals waiting for student-athletes to recover from surgery. They continually communicate back to parents and coaches to keep everyone informed. And once the athlete is back on campus, athletic trainers often make sure the proper assistance is in place to help the injured student get to and from classes and have meals delivered.
If even two or three such injuries occur at the same time, on top of all the other work athletic trainers do to keep athletes healthy, you can begin to understand how difficult the workload is to manage. But you can also see how important their extra work is to student-athlete welfare.
LIFE LINE OF TRUST
Athletic trainers deal with more than just the physical ailments of student-athletes, often handling the emotional and mental ones as well. Let me tell you the story of John, a football player in his senior year, who was well-liked by coaches, peers, and the athletics staff. He had suffered only minor injuries until a torn labrum in his shoulder forced him to miss spring football his junior year.
John worked hard with his athletic trainer during the spring and summer months and was back on the gridiron in the fall. On the surface, all seemed well until one day, when attempting to register for classes in the office of his academic advisor, John became irrationally upset, prompting her to call university security.
Upon arrival, security was unable to calm John, and followed procedure by calling the local police and the Director of Student Health and Counseling. Because all parties knew that John was an athlete they also notified the Director of Athletics and Head Football Coach.
John refused to speak to any of them and instead made his way to the field house. Followed by university and local police, the Director of Student Health and Counseling, and the football coach, John walked into the office of his athletic trainer and closed the door. In the conversation that ensued, his athletic trainer quickly realized that John was not himself and needed medical attention. The athletic trainer also knew that John might be arrested as soon as he stepped out of the office due to his erratic behavior.
From the relationship they had formed in the months prior to this incident, the athletic trainer was able to calm John and was also able to convince university personnel to allow John's parents to pick him up, with the stipulation that he would see a psychologist before he returned. John did so and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder--this being his first episode.
John did not return to the football team, but he graduated on time and is doing well. When he and his family visit campus each year, they continue to praise the efforts of his athletic trainer.
Stories about athletes like John who were helped by someone on the sports medicine staff exist in every campus athletic training room. Athletic trainers are often the first to know when a student-athlete is struggling with a class, having trouble at home, or even when friction exists with coaches and teammates. When facing issues, student-athletes frequently turn to their athletic trainers first, as this relationship is more comfortable at times than with that of a coach or administrator.
AT THE HUB
If by now you're thinking the goal of this article is to create a great case for naming your athletic trainer employee of the year, you're incorrect. The purpose is to help athletic administrators better understand what their athletic training staff members do and how important these functions are to the department.
Take a minute to think about your sports medicine department. It is the one place in an athletic department where student-athletes, parents, coaches, physicians, counselors, and various other department personnel converge with information central to the well-being of student-athletes. Athletic trainers have their fingers on the pulse of student-athlete welfare. They know when athletes are stressed, disgruntled, or about to explode. They know if coaches are handling student-athletes in ways that are positive or negative and also what athletes are saying out of earshot of other staff members.
When athletic trainers are seen in this light, they can become more valued members of the athletic department. They are highly educated, highly trained, and extremely talented professionals whom I often consult on decisions involving scheduling, retention, and the student-athlete experience. I ask for their insight on what's happening in many different areas of the department, as they are the ones who interact with each of them.
In addition to asking for their insight, I make sure to acknowledge their worth in every way I can. They work long hours with low salaries and never take the trophy home. As a former athletic trainer, I can tell you that no reward is better than the acknowledgement of your efforts and hearing the occasional thank you from your coaches and administrators. It's not too much to ask for all that they do.
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