Athletic training majors must work a sport’s pre-season as an athletic trainer before they graduate, according to a Norwich University athletic staff member. About 15 to 20 juniors and seniors are part of the preseason program.
“It’s actually required if you’re in the athletic training program that you do at least one preseason athletic training in your time here,” said Dave Bothelo, head athletic trainer at Norwich.
According to Bothelo, juniors and seniors come in during pre-season, not freshmen and sophomores. The students are assigned to a “clinical instructor and do anything that needs getting help with,” Bothelo said. For example, the students may help with evaluations, injuries or filling up water coolers.
Cindy Fortin, 23, a senior athletic training student from Quebec City, Canada, said that “a bunch of junior and senior students came here on Aug. 13 to help with football.” The students are trying to get more experience with athletic training.
This requirement gives the students the opportunity to get hands-on experience. Preseason is the best time to come because the students only have athletic training to worry about and not any school or extracurricular activities, according to Bothelo.
Many people do not know what is involved in being a student athletic trainer.
Eric Birr, 20, a junior heath sciences and athletic training student from Long Island, N.Y., said, “As an athletic training student we have to take classes on everything from anatomy to prevention and treatment of common injuries to emergency care of injuries.”
Many of the athletic training students participate in other activities besides their athletic training. Some are on sports teams, others are involved in clubs and some are in the corps, said Birr.
Preseason training gives great flexibility to student trainers. There is no limit to the number of hours that are required for students to train. According to Bothelo, during the school year, “it is required that athletic training students do 15 to 20 hours” to meet the minimum standard depending on their class year.
Athletic training students can use athletic training as work study, but they first must satisfy the 15 or 20 hour requirements before they can use their training for work-study hours, according to head clinical instructor Janine Osterman.
Students try to get as much experience as they can before graduation, and working preseason helps with that goal.
Fortin also said that the hours she worked during pre-season were very different from the hours she works during the school year. She said that they mainly work from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. When school starts, the trainers just work the number of hours that are required, but are also encouraged to work study as well.
Students also want to get as experience with as many different sports teams as they can, which they can do during preseason, according to student trainers.
Some of the trainers are either current athletes or former athletes who like being around sports teams and helping out. A lot of the trainers have either been injured and cannot play any sports or they just want to be in that kind of atmosphere, because they still love sports.
Whitney Brown, 19, a senior athletic student trainer from Rochester, N.H., said that as athletic trainers they “tape the football guys and get the athletes ready to go out to practice.”
This is not easy work, said Fortin. There is so much to do that most of the good training that students receive comes out of the few weeks of preseason.