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Student trainers get hands-on experience assisting teams

Julie Blunt, a junior at Foothill High School, fills water bottles at a football game. Some trainers also served as team managers. File photo: fhspress.com.

A new column dedicated to sports at Foothill High School.

COLUMN
By KEE DEMPSEY
fhspress.com Co-Sports Editor
Posted October 5, 2017

The sports medicine students at Foothill High School are CPR First Aid and AED (Automated External Defibrillators) certified. The class started three years ago by head cross country and track and field coach Kevin Clancy. This year Coach Clancy got a change to work at his dream job with a running organization and he took the offer. The sports medicine program at FHS is now being run by the person who's program Coach Clancy originally created it after, Tommy Pass. The students in Sports Medicine 2 are assigned sports teams at the school that they have to work with all season.

At practices we give out bandages and help out with the small injuries before the big days come. At games student trainers are allowed to tape players, massage out cramps, and help the athletes get back into the game as soon as they can. Most people mistake the things we can and cannot do with this title.

As a student trainer we can’t diagnose injuries, or give medicine to take away any pain. We can let the coaches know what the injury is (more than likely) and if it’s serious enough to keep the players out of the game. If the student trainers were to go outside their scope of practice and a player was to get seriously injured, something called the Good Samaritan Law won’t be able to protect the trainer if parents wanted to sue them.

The number one question parents have is whether athletic trainers can override the coach’s decisions and let players go back in. To answer that question: No. As a student trainer we can’t override a coach and force them to put a player back into a game. Most coaches will listen to the trainers and trust them because of the chemistry with the trainer. Also if its only preseason, the coach isn’t going to put a player back into the game because those games don’t matter as much as season games do.

That’s the life of a student trainer at games.

sports@fhspress.com

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