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Osage BeachLake Regional Sports Medicine is proud to announce the addition of Zach Greco, a new athletic trainer who primarily will serve athletes at School of the Osage. Greco’s previous experience includes serving as an outreach athletic trainer for Excel Athletic and Physical Therapy in St. Louis. In that position, he served as the head athletic trainer for the River City Rascals minor league baseball team.Greco said he is looking forward to interacting with the high school sports teams throughout the lake area.“As a former athlete in high school and college, I am aware of the positive effects that an athletic trainer can have on the success of both the team and the individual,” he said.Greco joins Lake Regional athletic trainers Tera Moritz, who serves primarily at Camdenton R-III, and Kaelin Wilson, who serves primarily at Morgan County R-II. The athletic trainers attend games and practices for several sports, ranging from tennis to football, and are there to prevent, assess and treat injuries.“Through assisting coaches and athletes with proper training and preventive measures, athletic trainers can help athletes avoid a lot of injuries and can also help them minimize the effects of injuries that do occur,” said Scott Hofer, D.O., a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist at Lake Regional. “Their presence on the sidelines helps keep student athletes safe and off the injured list.”
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A win for safety
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The need for athletic trainers in high school sports has been in the national spotlight lately, following the release of a study showing that nearly one-third of American schools do not use athletic trainers.Douglas Casa, Ph.D., the chief executive officer of the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut, which conducted the nationwide study, said in a news release that most sports deaths are “preventable and result from a failure to have proper prevention strategies in place, immediately recognize the condition, and/or implement appropriate care. Prompt management of these injuries is critical to the patient’s positive outcome and should be carried out by trained health care personnel, such as the athletic trainer, to minimize risk.”The Missouri State High School Activities Association also conducted a survey and found 30 percent of Missouri schools had no athletic trainer services in 2014-2015. Although high, this number is trending down, having dropped from 40 percent four years earlier.“We are making this progress because people realize the importance of having a qualified health care provider present and are finding ways to make this happen,” the Missouri Athletic Trainers’ Association said in a news release.Brad Yoder, School of the Osage activities director, said the district uses athletic trainers because it prioritizes student safety.