Demise of the Collegiate Athletic Trainer

I wholeheartedly agree with the need of the athletic trainer and value their service. However, the attitude of this "D1ATC" is the reason most runners and coaches disrespect the typical ATC. This ATC writing above shows the typical egotistical attitude of the ATC. Their egos are often bigger than that of the football all-american. I don't understand why ATC's think the athletes owe them something when in fact the ATC doesn't exist if the athlete isn't there. My D1 school has 11 certified ATC's. D1ATC do you think all of those people would have a job if they in fact were only there for "football, basketball, hockey and baseball"? Hell no! That many people have jobs because of athletes in the "non-revenue sports". We make up the majority of the sports. Most trainers never touch a football or basketball player during the year so don't act like we're so lucky to have your services on the side. My team is fortunate to have a dedicated ATC for our sport but the ATC is also lucky we get one otherwise he is out of work. Athletes are the reason we work, the reason we have a job and your pathetic attitude is why you'll never have the respect of most of your athletes and the coaches you report to. Yes, you are here to help us reach our goals, not the other way around. That's why they call you "support staff" (...think about it). Keeping an athlete healthy is an easy job. Keeping them healthy and training them to a level that allows them to perform at a high level is difficult at times. I hope you understand our job isn't as easy as you want to believe it is. I hope you understand that these whiny runners are in pain because they want to win and are willing to take risks to do it. That deserves respect. You don't get fired when we don't when a championship but we do. But at the same time we can't win if you don't do your job. If you want the runners to stop whining to you and respect you then you set the example. Show them you are bought into their success. That will get them to buy into and trust you and stop complaining. Spend your time at the bar talking about how you can be a better trainer instead complaining to your co-workers about runner X's mom wanting her son to get healthy. That's why mommy asks for things. She just wants her son to run well and be healthy. She's not asking for orthotics just to piss you off. Quit truing to come up with excuses for why you shouldn't have to help (pre-existing) and think of ways you can help. God forbid the athletic trainers fund raise to augment their budgets like we do.

Aside from your complete lack of understanding how to do your job you have a complete lack of understanding of where the money comes from. Very few schools are getting the majority of their funding from revenue sports. Most are getting the majority of their funding from tuition paying students who pay an athlete fee. Guess who some of those students are... the non-revenue athletes not on full scholarships.

I'm glad I have a good ATC right now who doesn't think like you. But I have had a lot that do and that's why I respect my teams ATC but not his profession.

Okay, let's put this in perspective.Tuition at a moderately high price university: $35,000 - $40,000 per yearCost of having an ATC work 70 hours per week of irregular hours, travel with the team, and all that: $35,000 - $40,000I guess in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't cost that much to have one around. I imagine a robot that could apply ice and electrical stimulation, load a software program to do concussion testing, apply tape, and also refer anything slightly complex to MD's would cost more than that (up front, at least).

Holy smokes! This post got out of hand. In hindsight, when I was composing this essay, I think I may have been pretty bummed about a particular athletic trainer’s assistant, who may or may not have blown me off for a certain running-back, who may or may not happen to be a complete… Anyway, guess what? She dumped this guy, and now she’s dating a really lucky runner!

So maybe I was taking out my frustrations on athletic trainers. Perhaps we all got a little caught up in the heat of the moment. But everyone deserves a second chance, right? I happen to love athletic trainers, especially when they’re not dating football players. Athletic trainers are the best! Athletic trainers may be the single greatest thing that’s happened in my college career so far. Who knows…I may even want to marry an athletic trainer someday!

Keep at it, everybody.

--TC

Athletic trainers are necessary and often extremely underpaid for their time and effort. They seldom work in pleasant conditions and constantly have their methods questioned. Good athletic trainers deserve more money than they are likely paid.

Personally, I have issues with the particular athletic trainers often assigned to distance programs. They rarely have enough specific expertise to handle distance runners. It's easy to assess the injury from a football perspective where they assign the injury as a one-time thing and expect different results in the future by changing nothing. Or they are just as likely to harp on the repetitive stress of running as a reason why running is the cause of injury and not something more specific to the individual. Or they might assign weight training as part of rehab without an actual reason for it. Few athletic trainers join the ranks with dreams of helping distance runners.

But there is a catch. That crappily paid athletic trainer still probably does three times a better job of helping treat injuries than the college kids would themselves. A four-year generically trained AT is still going to save the college careers of athletes much better than they would themselves with their almost complete ignorance/lack of wisdom about running as a lifetime sport.

My local D3 school had one head athletic trainer and I believe two assistant athletic trainers. I doubt they got paid well at all and their otherwise clean facilities were constantly inundated with sweaty athletes needing some sort of physical attention.

Contrast this with the D1 university I attended. Their football team had several ATs and each one was hardly accountable for any significant portion of the operation. They had it pretty cushy even though they weren't paid amazingly well.

I use ATs and assist ATs pretty interchangeably here. It goes without saying that the assistants do a fair percentage of the grunt work. As sports medicine improves, too, the older breed of ATs aren't necessarily the ones with better discretion. I do think there should be more scrutiny of trainers, but only to the same degree that I also think many universities have downright bad coaches in charge of several programs, as well. There are plenty of well-deserving qualified individuals making these sports possible and this letter perhaps damages them unnecessarily.

"They have 1-2 nutrition classes and feel like nutrition experts, but college and pro teams tend to have nutritionists, so no dice there. In rehabbing chronic injuries, PT's get the main action (and who would you rather have treating you, a DPT with a minimum of 7+ years of training or an ATC with only an undergrad degree with a 2.5gpa requirement?)"

Over 70% of athletic trainers practicing actually have at least a masters degree and the masters degree curriculum is extensive. We took several of our courses with PT and OT students simultaneously. We also took human gross anatomy with PT, OT, and PA students. ATCs also have their own NPI number, and their own designated CPT/UB codes that they actually can bill for when they work in an orthopedic practice. It all depends on the setting. Before becoming a PA, I worked in an orthopedic practice with a physician where I was also certified to first assist in the OR. I went back to school to become a PA not because I didn't like the ATC profession, but because I wanted to work in ortho trauma in the emergency setting.

http://www.nata.org/sites/default/files/AT_Facts.pdf

Also, orthopedic practices are starting to utilize the ATC more because of their value in increasing patient care quality due to their knowledge of orthopedic injuries, and since they can also gain credentialing in first-assisting in the OR.

http://www.nata.org/sites/default/files/The-AT-as-Orthopedic-Physician-Extender.pdf