You’ve probably heard the stories from your parents’ high school days. After a hard hit, football players would sniff smelling salts and shake it off so they could get back into the big game.
But in today’s high school and college sports, player safety has become the highest priority. Now, most schools partner with local hospitals to provide on-site certified athletic trainers to keep student athletes safe at sporting events and practices. And athletic trainers have become an integral part of the care continuum working behind the scenes to prevent injuries.
What Are Athletic Trainers?
Athletic trainers (ATs) are highly qualified, multiskilled health professionals who serve and treat athletes under the direction of or in collaboration with a physician. They’re licensed or regulated to practice in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
As part of a school’s health care team, athletic trainers can provide a wide range of services, including:
- Emergent care.
- Examination, and clinical diagnosis.
- Injury and illness prevention.
- Primary care.
- Rehabilitation of injuries.
- Therapeutic intervention.
- Wellness promotion and education.
The American Medical Association (AMA), Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) all recognize athletic training as an allied health care profession.
Although many ATs work in schools, they can provide medical services for all types of patients and settings, not just athletes participating in sports. They can relieve widespread and future workforce shortages in primary care support and outpatient rehab professions. This provides an unparalleled continuum of care for athletes and patients.
Some may confuse athletic trainers with personal trainers. However, the difference in the education, job duties, and skill sets between athletic trainers and personal trainers is vast.
The academic curriculum and clinical training of an AT follow a medical model. Athletic trainers must complete accredited athletic training degree programs.
Athletic Training in Action
Kayleigh Wagner, head athletic trainer at Cathedral Preparatory High School in Erie, Pa., is in her sixth year as a full-time AT. Cathedral Prep is a co-ed private Catholic high school known for drawing good athletes because of its robust sports program.
The school contracts with UPMC Sports Medicine for two full-time athletic trainers. This covers 29 varsity teams, nine junior varsity teams, and two freshman teams over the course of the year. Kayleigh has been operating as the only athletic trainer at Cathedral Prep this year while the school is recruiting a second.
To prepare for her career, Kayleigh completed a bachelor’s degree in athletic training from Duquesne University. She did her junior- and senior-year clinical rotations three days a week at high schools and colleges in the Pittsburgh area. She worked as a per diem athletic trainer for a short while before landing the full-time position at Prep.
Although Kayleigh’s office is on-site at the high school practice facility, she spends most of her time out on the fields at practices. Up to 100 athletes per month come through her door during the busy parts of the season.
At times, the schedule of an athletic trainer is intense and long.
“My day starts around 2:30 to 3 p.m. as teams gear up for practice or for game preparation sessions,” says Kayleigh. “It usually goes until 9:30 to 10 p.m., when all the practices are over, but it also includes weekends, early mornings, and all-day Saturdays.”
Kayleigh says she enjoys working the second shift, even if the hours run long. “I’m not stuck in a clinic or office, and I have a teacher’s schedule where I’m off in summer, so it works out great.”
Her usual first order of the day is to tape up all the ankles and wrists of the student athletes who line up at her office door after school before sports practice.
“Coaches know that some athletes might be late to practice because of taping, bracing, those kinds of things,” Kayleigh says. “Teams traveling to away games take precedence over everyone.”
For football, she’ll inform coaches of who’s rehabbing, who’s close to coming back, and how students are progressing. She has the school’s final say regarding student athlete concussion protocols and determines whether a student athlete will play in a game or not. Kayleigh defers to parents if they prefer that their child sit out for a few more games after she has approved their athlete’s return to play.
Fall is Kayleigh’s busiest season, with the most teams competing at one time, and football prep is time-intensive. Kayleigh must move from athlete to athlete taping or bracing, stretching cramps, or diagnosing concussions. She provides first aid at games and has one purpose on the field: player safety.
During the pandemic, some schools made athletic trainers also responsible for enforcing COVID protocols, masking, and quarantines (though not at Cathedral Prep).
Kayleigh’s additional duties instead include a multitude of recordkeeping tasks. This includes documenting injuries and clearances to return to play and creating emergency action plans for illnesses and injuries. She’s also responsible for updating staff and guidance counselors on injured players and maintaining contact with other trainers in advance of competitions.
“I know all the other athletic trainers at other schools, so we talk before and after games about player issues and injuries,” she says.
She says the hardest part of her job is the news she occasionally must deliver.
“Sometimes I have to have hard conversations with kids,” Kayleigh says. “Telling a student their season is over is hard. But being there as a trusted confidante for my students is one of the most rewarding parts of my job.”
She adds that there’s a lot of fulfillment and fun in her job, too.
“I played basketball and rowed crew in high school,” she says. “But now, I’m enjoying covering a lot of sports I didn’t play growing up and learning those sports as an adult.”
In addition, she feels a huge amount of appreciation from student athletes, parents, and coaches and has built great relationships with them.
Building Relationships with Students
“The best part of my day would have to be the relationships I form with student athletes and watching them grow into young adults,” she says. “The students and staff all treat me with such respect.”
And her work has not gone unnoticed or unheralded.
“I’ve received amazing gifts of appreciation from team moms, including thank you notes and gifts for my new baby,” she says. She also receives recognition and thanks at team banquets.
Another perk includes watching player development. “I love seeing these kids blossom in their sports,” says Kayleigh. “It’s really fun to watch that journey.”
She also loves watching athletes return to sports after recovering from their injuries.
“Seeing kids come back from injury to return to playing a sport they love — and knowing that I helped facilitate that in some small way — is very satisfying for me.”
Kayleigh says many former students come back to Cathedral Prep to watch sporting events or visit with their old coaches and her after they graduate and seeing them as successful young adults is a source of pride for her.
“They always make sure to stop in and say hi to me to catch up,” she says. “Even going out of their way to say hello and think of me brightens my day.”