Rotation VIII

Football

Football…for being such a popular sport, why is it such an unpopular rotation? The reason is because it has long been established as the sport which belongs to the undergrads. It’s not the 6:45am start time, because even that isn’t 6:00am. It’s not the tremendous amount of taping because even that is valuable practice we could all use. It’s not even the demanding athletes and their excessive use of profanity, because even they are real cool folks and it turns out, after talking and living with them, you have a ton in common! It’s a sport/rotation where grads will never have the majority control. And that’s perfectly okay. At one point, we were all undergraduates and needed somewhere to start. I don’t believe this to be a problem, it is simply an explanation. It would probably be the same if the tables were turned and a majority of grads were hanging around instead of undergrads. And that is the reason I wasn’t looking forward to football. But, this time, it was different.

Before moving to Texas, I remember browsing SFA Sports Medicine website with Dan Miller, the Head Athletic Trainer from Chabot Community College, and we came across Sandy Miller’s profile. I asked Dan, “What makes this guy a 4x Hall of Fame athletic trainer? If most of the knowledge about treating an ankle sprain is fairly common, what makes him better than you or any single athletic trainer better than any other athletic trainer?”

Dan replied, “I can’t say, but if anything, he is probably a helluva teacher, and can probably get his instructions and message across, so other people can understand, easier and more effectively than other athletic trainers.” I remember this conversation very distinctly because I have since wondered how does one athletic trainer distinguish themselves from others, if they essentially know the same thing.

And over the past two weeks, Dan’s response finally came to light. His answer made sense then, but even more so now, because Sandy does have this unique way of getting things done. Now, I have only known the guy for two semesters, but these past two weeks have allowed me to put Dan’s response into context with Sandy’s personal actions. The first time I had football as a rotation; I only taped ankles, and passed out water. This time around, I still taped ankles and passed out water, but I could tell he trusts me a lot more because we (Jorge and I) were more involved with daily treatments and rehab and entering information onto eSims. Of course, the undergrads were involved with data entry also (mostly Forges), but the pinnacle of the rotation came when Sandy trusts me with a new injury, in terms of setup, patient positioning, application, and taking a detailed enough history to enter into eSims. That was really cool for me because I remember asking Sandy, “Did you say enter him a New Injury, or Update, because I’m going to need the initial impressions, and MOI, details, etc.” And in his subtle voice, Sandy replies, “There he is right there,” implying to get the information from the athlete. So I did. I was a little surprised because I thought that would be something he would want to do, but turns out, it wasn’t. May not seem like a big deal, but it kind of was. The timing was perfect.

It is things like that which made this rotation incredibly enjoyable this time around. I really felt like I could put everything I learned in the classroom to use, especially from the therapeutic modalities class, and upper extremity class, when explaining to an athlete why they are positioned a certain way, or why the treatment will be more effective if there shoulder is in this direction, and not in that direction. I strongly feel I accomplished a lot.