The Tribune

THE University of The Bahamas Athletics department is celebrating International Athletic Training Month which is an opportunity to spread awareness of the impact athletic trainers have on sports and student-athletes.

Athletic trainers are health care professionals that prevent, diagnose, treat and rehabilitate injuries for active people in many industries usually in sports but can extend to military and clinical applications.

UB Director of Athletics Kimberley Rolle said the two trainers at UB - Sasha Johnson the head athletic trainer and Shakeitha Henfield the assistant athletic trainer - are standouts here in The Bahamas.

“Both of our athletic trainers are US board-certified and holders of master’s degrees which means we have the top two in-country athletic trainers at The University of The Bahamas,” she said.

Johnson said trainers are important to the health of athletes for many reasons.

“Most times we are first on the scene and act as first-responders when we think about the whole sports medicine model,” she said. “When a kid goes down on the field or on the court traditionally the athletic trainer is the first on scene and does the assessment and makes a judgment call on whether or not that athlete can return to play.”

And if an athlete does suffer an injury, Johnson says athletic trainers guide them back to the sport they love.

“When they do sustain an injury we are able to provide immediate treatment and guide them through their rehab protocol and a lot of times at the end of that rehab we are the ones that return them to play,” she said.

Mingoes basketball guard Theo Grant has sustained two injuries while at UB and he said the therapy he received from the athletic trainers was invaluable to getting him back on the court.

“They made sure I got the rehab that I needed to get back to playing,” he said. “They got me back to 100 percent.”

Mingoes softball captain Cyntese Cooper said the athletic trainers have been a huge help to all the student-athletes at UB.

“They are like caretakers to us and we can always depend on them to help us through whatever we are going through,” she said.

Rolle though points out that athletic trainers at UB do a lot more than just physically help the student-athletes.

“Our ATs have to be a lot more than just athletic trainers at times,” Rolle added.

“Often times they have to be a counsellor and counsel our athletes who have had serious injuries and even career-ending injuries.

“That’s not a part of their job description but that’s invaluable and that’s something you can’t put a price tag on.”

‘Providing Health Care Everywhere’ is the theme of this year’s National Athletic Training Month, which is sponsored by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA), a not-for-profit organisation based in Dallas, Texas.