Blog 7

During the final days of my senior project, I had the great opportunity to shadow a few members of the athletic training department. I spent a few hours shadowing a man named Rich, who was the head athletic trainer for CSU athletes. He has been working at CSU for the past 18 years. I was able to ask him questions about his daily schedule, the athletes, how he decided to become a trainer, and everything else his job entails. He gave me a very in-depth tour of the athletic campus, including the training areas and locker rooms. On this tour, I met the rest of his team and got the chance to talk to them about their specific roles. CSU has 17 athletic teams and there are 8 athletic trainers. Each trainer is designated to look after 1-3 teams and will specifically focus on those athletes. CSU also has a very close relationship with the Cleveland Clinic and they send over primary care and orthopedic fellows twice a week to take a closer look at students when they have a more serious issues. Rich explained to me their protocols for keeping the athletes as healthy as possible, including the international ones. He explained the most common injuries for each sport and the exercises they give to those athletes. He also told me about the process of giving each student a physical and how they are tested for concussions. I was very grateful to hear everything Rich had to say about his job, but I was also very curious about how he came into this position since I have just started my journey of figuring out what I want to do.  I have always thought being an athletic trainer was cool, and I got to hear from Rich about why he chose this profession. He told me he does not regret any choices he made, and he loves the fact that he is able to work with such great students. 


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