Students helping students

Erik Gray is an assistant trainer for the women's volleyball team and Maria Dinney is head trainer for the men's basketball team. (Nick Pearce Photo)

It happens at least once a game: a player goes up for the ball and lands awkwardly, twisting her ankle. Before you know it, someone is darting off the bench and rushing across the floor to help. They often go unnoticed by the average fan, but coaches and players know that athletic trainers are as essential to a team’s success as an accurate jump shot or booming body check.

The Dalhousie Athletic Trainer Association (DATA) was founded in 1987 to provide athletic training support for Dalhousie’s 14 varsity teams. The program has been coordinated for the past two years by physiotherapist Lisa Brown (BSc PT ’05), who is responsible for the recruitment and education of student trainers.

“It’s great in terms of providing valuable hands-on experience for the students,” she explains. “It helps them accumulate some volunteer hours, which are needed in programs like nursing and physiotherapy, and it helps get them references for jobs or graduate school programs once they’re finished.”

While the vast majority of the students come from the School of Health and Human Performance, the program is open to anyone who has an interest in athletic training and is able to commit 12 to 15 hours required on a weekly basis.

There are two tiers— head trainer and assistant trainer. Head trainers are often kinesiology students, who already possess a background in areas like human anatomy, physiology, and care and prevention of athletic injuries. Assistant trainers come from many other academic disciplines and are given training in those missing areas, with the goal of being able to fulfill the roll of head trainer in a subsequent year. Most students stay in the program for two to four years.

Erik Gray is a third-year kinesiology student from Whitehorse, Yukon and is in his first season as an assistant trainer with the women’s volleyball team. He says joining DATA was a great decision: “It’s definitely good hands-on experience, I am very interested in team sports, and this is a great way to meet great people.”

Maria Dinney, a head trainer for the men’s basketball team, echoes Mr. Gray’s sentiments. “You get to take initiative and you learn a lot,” she says, adding her skills have spilled over into everyday life, “It’s beneficial because there are injuries happening all the time and people always ask you for advice. You can apply what you learn here to everyday situations.”

Athletics trainers do not provide diagnosis or treatment of injuries; they are trained in first aid and CPR and thus provide an assessment of injuries and take appropriate action. They also play a major role in the prevention of injuries by taping of athletes for practice and games, and helping injured athletes warm up appropriately through stretching and massage.

“The students are given a lot of theoretical and practical training, including sessions about taping, massage, concussions, illegal substances, and this in turn helps them be first responders and allows to them to technically recognize what a situation may be so that they can make appropriate referrals to a doctor or other health-care provider,” explains Ms. Brown.

Recruitment for the 2009-2010 season will be starting soon and anyone who may be interested in finding out more information about the program can get in touch with Ms. Brown at the Dalplex Physioclinic.