In sports; they are behind the curtains, the people that set up for the show as well as tear it down, they will tell the actors and the director what will work and what won’t work.

In theater, they are called stage-hands, producers and editors; in athletic, they are called the Athletic Trainer.

Most colleges and some high schools have a Athletic Trainer.  They’re job are simple, to prepare the athlete’s for practice and games, communicating with coaches and doctor’s on athlete’s conditions and athlete’s insurances are up to date.

They aren’t seen often, but their final products, the athletes playing healthy, are seen on a regular basis.

For Southern Oregon University,  head athletic trainer Kristy Johnson is that person.

She graduated from SOU in 2001 with an athletic trainer emphasis just as the school was filtering it out from the Health and Physical Education department and receiving her master’s in 2003 from the college.

For athletic trainers, as with Johnson, they must keep up with the times outside of the classroom.  To stay certified, they must complete 50 hours of class work a year and be certified every two years to keep up with their creditably that comes with the title that Johnson say that they can do online or in a classroom with a hands-on practical side once in a while.

The exam, according to Johnson, used to feature a practical aspect section that features taping and evualtion, a multiple choice section and a scenario section.  Now it’s 150 multiple choice questions to be certified and stay certified.

But numerous people that look at the profession; mistaken athletic trainers for PE teachers, for coaches, for personal trainers instead of like first responders in the health care sector to the athletes.

However, Johnson says otherwise.

“I think it’s the way we are trained,” she said, “we have signification training in emergency care, emergency management, rehab, training, and evaluations.  All of the aspects of athletic training.  The amount of training we have to have, the continuing education have to have to keep up with the certification.”

Enough about the job, what is it like for Johnson on a daily basis?

Day at Practice

3pm, Johnson is in one of her meetings; but in the training room athletes and assistant trainers are preparing for the day of practice.

“When’s practice?”

“3:45”

“I think you might have to take it easy today.  Does your coach know about this?”

“Not fully.”

“Ok, tell him you’ll be in here today.  We’ll have you on the bike today to help let it heal, but to keep you moving.”

“Gotcha.”

The athlete walks out with a sign of disgust on his face with a vibe of disappointment that he won’t be practicing that day.

3:30.

Kristy walks in from her meeting.

“Almost forgot about the meeting,” she said laughingly.

She walks over to one of the trainer taping a wrist of a wrestler.

“Why are you taping it?”

“I twisted it the wrong way earlier.” said the athlete.

She tells the trainer that she can take over, the trainer then steps away to focus on another athlete in the room.

Johnson then picks up a base tape to keep the joint stable, then a inch and half thick piece of covering tape for padding and as a extra stabilizer from the elements that the wrist might face.

She focus’ mostly on wrestling during the winter months in which wrist and a occasional soreness are the least of the injuries.

Commonly in the sport; she is faced with dislocate elbows, shoulders, torn Lateral Collateral Ligaments (LCL, located on the outside of your knee), rotator cuff tears, etc.

3:50.

Johnson walks into her office to look over some insurance paperwork from injured athletes.

“Got to see what the school can pay for and see what we have to pay for.” she said.

SOU offers a secondary insurance policy for athlete’s to go along with their primary insurance for a small fee for one term at a time.

She would do this a few times a week whenever she receives them on her desk.

After a while, she puts the stack down and started to look at a Dance Kinesiology book that a student left to try to get sign off for her Kinesiology credits.

She is looking for the basics, planes of motion, saggital, transverse and frontal planes.  Some correlation to anatomy, the insertions and actions of the Latissmus Dorsi, the triceps, the calves.

After a few minutes, she decided to come back to it.

Some athletic trainers are also teachers.

Johnson is one for SOU, teaching the Care and Prevention of Sports Injury courses as well as kinesiology.

Athletic Trainers in this situation gets paid through the athletic department that work as a trainer as well as getting a additional salary from the department for working at the school.

4:10

On occasion, a non-athlete comes walking in asking to be looked at because of the school physician, Dr. Townsend, was his doctor and was to be coming in during the week.  His injury was a sprained ankle.

Johnson mentions that it is not common that someone that isn’t athlete would come down, but usually she would refer them to the Health Center on campus first.

She works with the individual, telling him that the health center might be the better choice but the individual was saying that he was working with Townsend and know he comes to the school often to help with the athlete.

So Johnson, tells him that she’ll talk to him the next day, on Tuesday as Townsend comes in Tuesdays and Thursdays, and to come in on Thursday to see if he would have some time to work with him or not.

The individual greatly appreciates it, thank her; Johnson gives him some advice about the ankle until then as he walks out of the training room.

The day roars on for Johnson and the rest of the training staff at SOU, helping athletes, running through rehab programs in the back room and living the dream of working in the athletic world.