Sports is one of the most fun things about school, but that fun can come with a price.
With sports, injuries like sprains, pulls, and dislocations are common, so it’s important to have help on the side, especially when the coach may not know enough about injuries or has to stay focused on the game to be giving medical attention. That’s where the student athletic trainers come in.
While the Sports Medicine class has been around since 2019, athletic training became a program in 2020. However, before becoming a student trainer you have to first complete Sports Medicine, a class that introduces you to the basics of injury prevention, human anatomy, first aid, and treatment of injuries. “A lot of my students’ first year there’s a first exposure to anatomy and physiology, muscles and the actions, so my expectation is for them to have fun and to learn about the body,” Marisol Rasul, the Sports Medicine and Athletic Training teacher, said.
After taking this course, students are able to move onto the Athletic Training class and become a student athletic trainer. “The main point I really want them to get in my class would be to know the muscles and to know the actions of the muscles,” Rasul said. “Also for them to know prevention of injuries and how to treat those injuries.”
Student trainers are able to choose two of any fall, winter, and or spring sport that they want to be an athletic trainer for. The hours trainers spend working with athletes can also be turned into community service hours and extra credit for the class.
There were eight athletic trainers for the fall sport season – Florentino Lopez, Hailee Morrison, Vianey Martinez, and Andres Avila in football; Julissa Angeles in both football and cross country; and Renata Alvarez, Evelyn Mendoza, and Chloe Henry for flag football.
“I enjoyed athletic training for that sport because I myself wanted to play but I was unable to and I thought being an athletic trainer would make me somewhat feel a part of the team, being able to help them when they’re down and hurting,” Henry said.
For Rasul, Lopez was one of the top student trainers who really stood out. “Florentino is my second year student, he’s on top of everything, he’s learning a lot, he’s putting a lot of himself to the initial learning he wants to learn so he comes here every lunchtime he takes care of the athletes afterschool,” Rasul said.
Lopez treated both JV and Varsity football. He chose football because he believes that there is a bigger variety of injuries and that he gets more experience from that. “It’s a tiring process, the most challenging thing is learning the techniques for proper healing of injury. I like the environment of sports and helping athletes when they need it. This class is a great way to experience working with others in case I want to get into health care,” Lopez said.
Lopez doesn’t just wrap the athletes and go on his way though, he prioritizes rehabilitating athletes one on one after a concussion or a bad injury. “The overall most important part about being an athletic trainer to me is that I get to collaborate with athletes one on one about how to strengthen their injuries and how to do treatment,” he said.
These skills are important to learn for him especially since he is considering a career in sports medicine when he’s older.
There were 10 trainers for winter and spring sports – Milly Alvarez, and Daniela Medina in JV Girls basketball; Brianna Garcia in Girls Varsity Basketball; Aliza Hernandez, Noah Ramirez, and Ruby Aguayo in Boys’ Varsity Basketball; Julissa Angeles in Boys’ Soccer; Rebecca Jimenez and Kristine Saldo in track and field and Girls Soccer; and lastly, Rochelle Andam in track and field and wrestling.
Student trainers are in charge of setting up before the game, providing athletes with first aid, and cleaning up after the game. Before sporting events the athletic trainers are responsible for carrying the water coolers, ice chest, and taping table from the classroom onto the field all by themselves. “So before the games we set up water, ice, and the taping table in case of injury during a game for both teams,” Mendoza said. “Then, like thirty minutes before each game and warm up we wrap athletes who need to be wrapped or just want more compression in a certain area. After the game is over we are usually one of the last people to leave since we have to put the taping table, water, and ice gallons away.”
Mendoza, who’s a senior, decided to do flag football mainly because her friends were on the team and she thought it’d be fun since it was Alisal’s first year having a flag football team.
Her favorite part of being an athletic trainer is the new friendships you form with the athletes during the practices and games.
Although the athletes are her favorite aspect of athletic training, they’re also the least favorite aspect for every athletic trainer. A majority of athletes try denying their injuries just so they can get back on the field to have more playing time. “The hardest part of being an athletic trainer is dealing with the ignorant athletes when they say they’re okay, but aren’t really okay,” Mendoza said.
Avila, a senior athletic trainer, is a hard working trainer. Not only did he work as a trainer during football season, he helps out students in need of rehabilitation during lunch time. “I wanted to continue being in the program because it’ll help as future reference like being a sports trainer or a sports performance coach, it’ll be great,” Avila said.
Another trainer with immense knowledge and experience is senior Kristine Saldo. “I really like being able to help people, especially in the times when they’re hurting, it makes me feel like I can help them and make them happy again and show them the proper way to heal themselves,” Saldo said. Although she thoroughly enjoys being a trainer, it isn’t easy being one as there are many challenges you have to face and learn from, “It’s difficult to keep up with every little detail, when it comes to muscles you have to get it spot on in order for it to be correct on tests.”
Rasul’s biggest goal for the sports medicine program is to develop a fully functional sports medicine rehabilitation center on campus to provide students who want to become future sports medicine trainers with more of a hands-on learning experience with more students dedicated to working during multiple sports seasons. “I think it’s important for students to have a fully functional rehabilitation center because a lot of times athletes don’t have enough time to go to rehabilitation, and sometimes there’s limitations of insurance. Sometimes insurance is only approved for once or twice a week, so I think having a full rehabilitation program or accessibility for those athletes is very important in order to get athletes healing, to get them stronger, and to diminish or decrease the possibility of injuries.”
It’s not just Rasul who wants to see more students becoming athletic trainers, Francisco Estrada, the head football coach is a big supporter, “They’re a huge help, they’re a huge benefit, they can only be seen as an asset to every sport.”
Track and field athletes Angel Perez and Flor Amaya also believe these trainers contribute greatly to their meets, “They help us out in multiple ways, they help us perform to our maximum potential without getting super injured, they help prevent injuries from happening to us,” said Perez, “They help students who have injuries and I feel like it really lifts off weight from out coaches since they don’t have to help us as much,” said Amaya.
Kiana Thompson contributed to this story.
