Unsung heroes: High school athletic trainers endeavor to keep student-athletes on the field, court

Sports can be dangerous. Basketball players dive on the floor for loose balls. Soccer players body each other for possession. Football players crash into their opponent for a tackle. From shin splints to broken bones, injuries and strains occur at the high school level, and the student-athlete’s first line of defense is an athletic trainer.

Mead High School’s athletic trainer, Jocelyn Cook-Cox, starts her day by teaching Sports Medicine for fifth and sixth period. She then heads to the athletic training room to set up for the multitude of kids who will visit her for treatment every day.

When the bell rings at the end of the day, it signals the start of extracurricular activities. In preparation for practices, anywhere from 10 to 30 kids go to their athletic trainer for tape, rehab or injury evaluation. Cook-Cox’s job, along with fellow athletic trainer Nora Ifft, is to get them fixed up and off to practice on time.

However, her responsibilities are not complete after those one to two hours of prepping kids for practice. She then covers their training, serving as a resource in case any injuries occur. She is also required to cover home games and travel for most of the away games. This means her schedule is inconsistent – some days are short, while others can last until late in the evening.

Though she typically has most weekends off, coaches know they can call her in case something happens so she is always on the clock. She ends up working at least 40 hours a week just as an athletic trainer; whatever classes she teaches throughout the school day is added on to that.

Cook-Cox endures the long, sometimes stressful, hours because she enjoys her position. As a former high school and college athlete herself, she always appreciated and was fascinated by what the athletic trainers do for students. She has a passion for helping people and views her job as another way to remain involved in the sports world.

“Seeing (injured athletes) come back and come back stronger and keep that passion alive is very fulfilling for me,” Cook-Cox said.

There has recently been a push to improve working conditions for athletic trainers. Currently, 43% of Washington schools are not covered by athletic trainers, and those that are covered are not getting paid enough for what they do. In addition, they are generally not granted travel accommodations, like food and a place to stay, during state tournaments.

Though conditions are beginning to improve in Spokane, there are many other regions that are still lagging, and the reason for that always involves finances. Many schools don’t have enough money to hire another staff member, whether they are contracted through a physical therapy clinic, a hospital or the school directly.

“People also make the argument of if you have athletics, then you have the budget to hire on medical for the athletics,” Cook-Cox said. “So, I guess it’s just more of like them deciding whether or not they think it’s important enough, and the battle is telling people that it’s important enough.”

If Mead plays a team that does not have an athletic trainer, Cook-Cox and Ifft will look out for the opponent as well as the Panthers. If two teams that don’t have athletic trainers are playing each other, then the game is simply not covered, and the responsibility falls back on the coaches who do not have any extra training under their belt.

“There’s definitely a need that is not getting filled because people don’t understand the value that we have as medical professionals,” Cook-Cox said.

Not only are athletic trainers underappreciated, but they are usually alone in their jobs as well. There are only a few schools in the area that use more than one athletic trainer, and often it’s a part-time position.

But a group of trainers around Spokane meet on occasion to spend time together, swap stories and rant about their experiences. Often, they don’t know how stressed they are until they have the opportunity to get things off their chest.

Earlier this year, Cook-Cox and Ifft were called to a JV basketball game to assess a student on the opposing team. He had gone in for a layup but landed wrong and broke his leg. The crowd was silent as Ifft stabilized the leg, waited for the ambulance and helped with the transfer, while Cook-Cox was doing other parts of their Emergency action plan.

Though it was a rare and emotional moment, they had to regroup and cover another game that night.

“It happened. You deal with it, you have to keep going because there’s more to be done,” Cook-Cox said. “You can’t just decide you’re done taking care of kids for the day.”

People may think they have an understanding of what athletic trainers do – applying exercise tape, leading stretches, filling ice baths. That’s all part of it, but there is so much more to the job. They are equipped to handle all sorts of medical emergencies, and could be the difference between a catastrophe and a positive outcome for a student-athlete.

And occasionally they provide another safe space for athletes in the training room. Some students don’t even physical assistance – they’ll just go to talk.

“Honestly, I really enjoy the relationships that I develop with the athletes,” Cook-Cox said. “I feel like I’m one of their biggest fans.”

This story has been edited to include details about Mead athletic trainer Nora Ifft.