The Minnesota Athletic Trainers’ Association has honored the Vikings with its Sports Medicine Enhancement Award for the NFL team’s work with high school football programs in St. Paul and Minneapolis.
The award went to the athletic training staff, headed by Eric Sugarman, and Vikings director of youth marketing and social responsibility Brett Taber. It is presented to an organization that has made contributions to athletic training in Minnesota.
Sugarman said Wednesday the Vikings were awarded an annual grant from the NFL Foundation for $25,000 and that was matched by team owners for a total of $50,000 for both 2014 and 2015. During those football seasons, the money enabled athletic trainers to be present during games and practices for the six St. Paul public high schools and seven in Minneapolis that have football programs.
“These were things some of these schools never experienced before, and I will never forget the quote from the St. Paul school district (representative),” Sugarman said. “He said, ‘We haven’t had an athletic trainer in 50 years at any of our games,’ and that was really striking to me. And now that they’ve had two years of consistent care, hopefully they feel that it’s mandatory, and that’s the whole design of this program, to kind of show people what athletic trainers do and how it can help athletes.”
The athletic trainers have been provided by TRIA Orthopaedic Center in conjunction with NovaCare Rehabilitation, and the program will continue for the 2016 season. Sugarman said those previously on hand at schools to provide care included individuals such as a parent who is a doctor or a chiropractor.
Treatment of concussions has been a big issue at all levels of football. Sugarman said the program diagnosed 74 concussions the past two seasons — 34 in 2014 and 40 in 2015 — after having about half that many before reported in previous seasons.
“It’s a huge part of the program, concussion prevention, concussion treatment protocol,” Sugarman said.
Sugarman said the plan is to expand the program to other public schools in Minnesota.