Article reposted from The Tangerine
Author: Christian A. Rodriguez
Athletic trainers play big parts in athlete’s careers. Their job is to help athletes recover from their injuries, as well as evaluate and prevent injuries.
They put together injury prevention protocols for teams that are separated by specific body parts. If the athlete gets hurt, they find out what it is, and inform the athlete. If the injury isn’t too severing, they will provide exercises and rehabilitation for the athlete to recover. If it is severe, they will set them up with an appointment at the nearest hospital.
If you are a student athlete at Utica College, then you are familiar with the athletic training room where you see a 5 foot 6 inch, brown-haired women with glasses and a pet dog by her side at her desk. That woman is Assistant Athletic Trainer Dawn Corbin. Junior men’s basketball player Ivan Iton appreciates having Corbin around when he needs her. She once treated Ivan for a dislocated finger in his freshman season at UC and he says his finger was as good as new, but Corbin made sure he was in her office every day to be sure his finger got better.
“UC is very fortunate to have such a passionate worker like Dawn on campus for the past eight years,” Iton said.
“Since the day I was hired in August of 2009, I always loved to see the process from when athletes get hurt to when the athlete is better; it is truly a rewarding feeling,” Corbin said.
Dawn earned her bachelor’s degree in athletic training from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2004. She wasn’t done yet; she traveled to Virginia and went on to earn her master’s in kinesiology, the study of human movement, from the University of Virginia in 2005.
“It was really tough at the University of Virginia. I was working with the football team and teaching while completing my master’s degree is just one year,” Corbin added. She was teaching physical education classes while getting her master’s degree along with working with the football team at the University of Virginia.
Her hard work is inspiring as she also managed to accomplish every college student’s dream, to graduate with a 4.0 GPA, and she did it from both institutions.
Athletic training has always been a part of Corbin life since she started studying athletic training as a freshman. Prior to working at Utica College, from 2000 to 2004 she was an intern for the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers as an undergraduate at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. As a huge football fan, Corbin said she was very fortunate and grateful for that opportunity, she said. Her favorite player on the team was Jerome Bettis and she says that he was the reason she got the job.
“I was walking around the facility and happened to walk into the training room where Jerome walked in and asked what I was doing there,” Corbin said. “They told him I was interning for a job and he said ‘well let’s see how she tapes an ankle’ and he seemed to like the way I taped because I got the job right on the spot.”
From 2005 to 2009, Corbin was also a part of the Shorter University’s athletic training staff in Rome, Georgia.
In this world, it is good to expand your mind and get out of your comfort zone, and not be so one-dimensional. Athletic training isn’t the only thing Corbin is good at. She wrote an article on postural control that was published for the Journal of Sports Rehabilitation in 2007. The name of the article is “The Effect of Texture Orthotics of Postural Control.” In 2009 that same book was published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine.
“At first I was just researching for personal knowledge, but then I thought I should share it with the world,” Corbin said. “After the first publish in 2007 I was really happy and felt accomplished, the publishing in 2009 was just a bonus.”
The research found the significant change in the balance with orthotic in as opposed to when the orthotic is out.
Corbin is also a part of the National Athletic Training Association, Magna Chuma Lade, a 4.0 graduates, and American College of Sports Medicine.
When Corbin isn’t working she spends time with her pet dog, Jerome, which she named after her favorite Steelers player, Jerome Bettis. Her love for animals is unbreakable. She currently resides in downtown Utica and just down the road from her home she volunteers at Stevens Swan Humane Society in Utica, where she takes care of the animals.
Away from the Utica College, Corbin also works part-time at an inventory company called Regis.
“It’s a pretty easy gig to get extra money, I just go to stores and count their inventory, why not?” she said.
When she isn’t working she lives a pretty exciting and adventurous life; she loves to skydive. Most people are afraid to skydive, but Corbin actually finds it funny that one time her parachute didn’t open and she had to use her emergency chute.
“I hit the ground pretty hard and dislocated my shoulder, but it was pretty fun and comical now that I think back on it,” Dawn said.
Co-worker Christopher Warner really enjoys working with Corbin. He finds her sense humor being a way of getting through his day.
“Dawn is very funny without showing it,” Christopher said. “Dawn can tell a joke with no smile and in her low voice and it’ll still be funny, that’s why I love working with her,” Christopher added.
Kristin Garrity, another Assistant Athletic Director at Utica College since 2015, is also grateful to work with Corbin every day. She also gets a kick out of Dawns “serious” sense of humor.
“Sometime I am the only one laughing when she makes a joke because people take her too serious and I know when she’s being funny and when she isn’t,” Kristin said. “Dawn is Dawn, there is no misunderstanding of how she feels, she speaks her mind and I love it,” Kristin added.