Category: Amateur Sports

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California AT Works World Deaf Championships

Los Angeles Southwest College’s athletic trainer Willda Jarrett has helped some of this country’s elite athletes during her almost 30-year career, but the high point may have taken place this past summer working at the World Deaf Championships in Taoyuan, Taiwan on the staff of the gold-medal winning United States women’s basketball team.

“I twice worked the Olympics but the World Deaf Championships was better than that because I was able to communicate with these athletes using sign language,” Jarrett says. “I learned so much about deaf culture and who they are. It was an amazing experience.”

LASC's Athletic trainer, Willda Jarrett, worked for the USA women's basketball team at the World Deaf Championships this summer in Taiwan

Jarrett, 52, served as an athletic trainer during the Summer Olympics in 1984 in Los Angeles and in 1996 in Atlanta, and is about to start her ninth year with the Cougars football as well as men’s and women’s basketball teams.  Her areas of expertise are assessing and evaluating orthopedic injuries as well as prevention and rehabilitation.

For about a month this summer, Jarrett was totally immersed in the deaf culture as Team USA trained in Northern California and competed in the World Deaf Championships in Taoyuan, where the squad defeated Greece in the semifinals and Lithuania in the finals.

Jarrett, who is not deaf but has a sister who is, says that while body parts and injuries are the same for all athletes, her experience working with deaf athletes was special because there are so few certified trainers who can communicate with them through sign language.

During her time with the team, Jarrett learned that many deaf players have not received proper care because of the language barrier. One athlete complained about having Anterior Compartment Syndrome, commonly mistaken for shin splints, and Jarrett was able to clearly explain to her through sign language the necessary surgical procedure that she would have to have. Previous medical experts lacked the necessary communication skills to properly communicate with the athlete about her injury.

Jarrett did not learn sign language until she was in her mid-30s when she took a couple of classes in American sign language, and joined the sign language ministry at her former church.  After going 20 years without using her skills, she recently began serving on the sign language team at her current  church. This restart led to a chance meeting in the spring with Vic’Toria Crockett, an assistant coach on the United States deaf women’s basketball team, who mentioned that the team was looking for an athletic trainer who could communicate with the players through sign language. Jarrett said she jumped at the opportunity because she had specifically wanted to help deaf athletes for many years.

“I never wanted to travel internationally and I don’t like long plane rides or time changes, but I would definitely go out of the country to travel with this team because the athletes just don’t get proper care because of language barriers — that’s what drives me to help them,” Jarrett says.

As the official athletic trainer for the USA Deaf Women’s Basketball team, she will be working with the team at the Summer Deaflympics next July in Turkey.

Link to Connect newsletter can be found here.

Link to Willda’s article on the Los Angeles Southwest College website can be found here.

Courtesy of Benjamin Demers, Public Information Officer at Los Angeles Southwest College

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
http://www.fwatad8.org/helping-us-win-gold-lasc-at-works-world-deaf-championships/

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US Soccer and Sue Falsone mutually part ways

The US national team is in the market for a new athletic trainer. 

SI.com’s Grant Wahl on Wednesday reported that head athletic trainer Sue Falsone was fired, but a US Soccer spokesman told MLSsoccer.com that Falsone was not fired and that the two parties mutually agreed to part ways. Falsone joined the team a year ago from Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers. Her duties have yet to be reassigned.

In other USMNT news, Wahl also reported a power struggle between head coach and technical director Jurgen Klinsmann and Chief Commercial Officer Jay Berhalter, quoting an unnamed source.

Contacted by MLSsoccer.com, US Soccer reiterated the statement provided to SI.com denying the claim: “Any perception that there’s a power struggle is simply false. Everyone is working collectively to improve the technical side on a daily basis.”

US Soccer indicated that Berhalter, brother of Columbus Crew SC head coach Gregg Berhalter, oversees a variety of areas at Soccer House in Chicago, including broadcasting, events, marketing, communications, player development and coaching programs.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
http://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2015/10/21/report-us-soccer-mutually-parts-ways-head-trainer-denies-rumored-power-struggle

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Keeping young players safe on the football field

More than 1 million young athletes play high school football, and every fall Friday night, their hearts and bodies are laid out on the field.

For Eddie Canales, it’s bittersweet. He loves the game, but he also knows what it can cost. He is the full-time caregiver for his son, Chris, who suffered a spinal cord injury while making a play as a high school senior in 2001.

Canales remembers watching video of that moment: “It looked like a great tackle, but if you slow it down enough, you saw at the very last minute, he dropped his chin,” and Chris went helmet-to-helmet.

After father and son witnessed another player suffer a spinal cord injury, they knew they had to help support players and families in similar situations. Their organization, Gridiron Heroes, was created. In 2011, Eddie Canales was honored as a CNN Hero for his work. Still, headlines and calls keep coming from around the country.

A month into the new high school football season, Gridiron Heroes has already received calls from two families of athletes dealing with traumatic brain injuries in California, two spinal cord injuries in Tennessee, one in Texas and another in South Carolina. It also has gotten a report of a death from a spinal cord injury in Louisiana.

One of those calls was about Jasil Favors, a sophomore on the Stony Point High School junior varsity squad in Round Rock, Texas. Jasil’s mom, Deborah, rushed to the school in early September after a coach phoned her that her son had been injured in a game. She then hurried to the hospital.

“He didn’t have any feeling in his legs. He had feeling in his arm and upper body,” Deborah Favors said. “As soon as we got a (CT) scan, they said he broke (vertebrates) 3-4-5 and they rushed him up to surgery.”

Doctors told her that Jasil’s neck had been broken. He’s still awaiting rehab at Seton Medical Center Williamson in Round Rock. He had a tracheotomy to help with his breathing.

Until they get to rehab, his mom said, “We don’t know if he will walk again.”

Protecting players’ heads

Protecting players’ heads is a concern in football, from the Pop Warner youth organization to professionals. Eighty-seven of 91 former NFL players who donated their brains to science after deathtested positive for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known as CTE, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Boston University. It’s a degenerative disease that’s linked with repeated head trauma and concussions, researchers said.

Just this year, thousands of former professional football players agreed to a settlement with the National Football League over allegations that the league hid the dangers of concussions from players, and a number of NFLers have retired at young ages due to concerns over concussions and how they might contribute to CTE.

Chris Borland was a star rookie who walked away from a $3 million, four-year contract with the San Francisco 49ers, telling ESPN, “From what I’ve researched and what I’ve experienced, I don’t think it’s worth the risk. … I’m concerned that if you wait (until) you have symptoms, it’s too late.”

All 50 states have adopted some sort of concussion legislation with minimum return-to-play guidelines for students who have had concussions. Hits to the head are a concern even at the younger levels. In 2012, Pop Warner changed its practice rules to limit contact.

“People are starting to understand. It’s getting out there,” Canales said.

According to the National High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance Study, there were more than 500,000 injuries related to high school football just last year. While muscle strains and sprains represented just over one-third of all the injuries, concussions were about one-quarter of all injuries.

Every year, the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill collects data on catastrophic football injuries. Last year, it found five high school fatalities directly due to football, three of them directly related to tackling or helmet-to-helmet collisions.

Advice for parents

So can young people play safe?

Canales said he thinks so. “This can still be a great game for our kids, if we do it the right way, ” he said. “We have to change the way we teach tackling. That’s a hard road for us to handle.”

Borland, the former 49ers player, said that playing football today is about weighing the risks. He tells parents, “I think you have to exercise some maturity and judgment and prioritize your child’s health.”

Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, the NFL’s first chief health and medical adviser, told CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta this year, “I’m a mom and have a son who played eighth-grade football. If I had young children today, I would be asking: Is the team that my son is going to play on connected to USA Football? Is there a certified athletic trainer on the sideline? Have the coaches, parents, the players and the trainer been educated around sports injury — particularly head injury and concussion? What does my pediatrician think?

“I would ask those series of questions, then weigh the pros and cons and make a judgment accordingly.”

MaryBeth Horodyski of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association said parents should look for programs that “emphasize things such as keeping the head up during play, seeing what they hit, not using their head as a ramming rod when tackling. “

She said everyone needs to be on the same page when it comes to safety. “Make sure officials are actually using the rules to protect the athletes,” Horodyski said. She also suggests parents sit down with their kids to talk about safety.

“Make sure that players understand that safety is their responsibility,” she said. “Put safety upfront so they don’t do anything to jeopardize their health. “

Horodyski points out that having proper-fitting equipment is key as well as a medical team on stand-by in case a player does go down. “I would hope that every high school have an athletic trainer and an ambulance with two paramedics on site,” she said. “That’s minimum. Having a team physician is excellent.”

According to the trainers’ association, while 70% of all high schools have some access to an athletic trainer, only 37% of all high schools have full-time athletic trainers.

All Deborah Favors can do for Jasil, she said, is hope and pray. “In my mind, to me, he’s going to walk,” she said.

ORIGINALARTICLE:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/health/high-school-football-injuries/index.html

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LLWS Head Athletic Trainer Talks Prevention

Athletic trainer keeping kids safe

With so many games going on in a short amount of time at the World Series, injuries are bound to happen. Eyewitness News caught up with the head athletic trainer, who said treating little league injuries is very similar to treating major league players.

Mike Ludwikowski said he’s been the head trainer at the Little League World Series for 16 years.

He said the only difference between the kids and the pros is the treatment – because in the majors  you will see ultrasounds and muscle stimulation. But in little league, it’s all ice and heat wraps.

“I’m about teaching them that if they do have an injury, here’s how you can take care of it, because I want them to go home with life lessons after the World Series,” Ludwikowski said.

Some of the most frequent injuries he sees in the training room involve growth plates in the heels and knees.

“It used to be shoulders and elbows before pitch count, and that has drastically dropped off. Which is fantastic,” he said.

According Ludwikowski, baseball players should take a break between seasons – to give their bodies a rest.

“In the big picture, I think it’s much better for athletes to have down time from baseball. Play another sport, ski, do other things in the winter that we get the opportunity to do here in the northeast and in the north,” he said.

When asked about the dangers of curve balls, Ludwikowski said new research suggests there is more force on the elbow during a fastball than a cure ball – but it all comes down to technique.

Cranston Western will play again Monday at 8 p.m. on ESPN 2.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
http://wpri.com/2015/08/22/athletic-trainer-keeping-kids-healthy-at-llws/

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Orthopedic Clinic to provide athletic trainers for youth sports

The parks and recreation departments of both Auburn and Opelika will welcome two new members to their youth sports teams this fall, thanks to the Orthopedic Clinic. The clinic is providing each city its own certified athletic trainer, free of charge, to aid in their youth recreational sports programs.

“We’ve partnered with Auburn Parks and Recreation and Opelika Parks and Recreation to provide certified athletic trainers for youth sports,” said Dr. Trent Wilson, sports medicine orthopedic surgeon with the Orthopedic Clinic. “Our clinic has taken care of Auburn High School, Opelika High School, Lee-Scott Academy and their programs, in addition to nine other area high schools, for 30 years. So we have a lot of relationships. … This was kind of a natural next step.”

Though the cities have provided trainers for tackle football teams in the past, this is the first year Auburn and Opelika rec teams will have trainers at all sports, from club soccer and football in the fall to basketball in the winter to softball and baseball in the spring. They’ll also have the ability to move from one league to another if needed.

In the past, parents, coaches and field managers have helped diagnose injuries. Adults have had to rely on the child’s reaction to the injury, which Opelika Youth Sports Coordinator Melissa Martin said can be difficult.

“You need to have somebody educated to look at it. They’re a great bunch of doctors at the Orthopedic Clinic,” Martin said. “That assures the kid, but it really assures the parent.

“I think it’s going to be fabulous. I don’t see how it’s not a win-win for everybody involved.”

Wilson said the trainers will help triage injuries, which ensures athletes quickly get appropriate professional care. They’re trained in everything from basic injury management to lifesaving measures.

“You’re going to find that some injuries that may be diagnosed by a mom or a coach are going to be treated right away by a professional,” Wilson said, adding in the past, a child with an injury may not have a relationship with an orthopedic doctor. In those cases, the athlete typically visits a pediatrician who will make a referral, which can take several days. “By having a trainer around, there’s going to be some comfort for the parents knowing their kids are safe.”

He described youth sports injuries as an “epidemic” and attributed many injuries to overuse.

With tackle football season on the horizon, Auburn Parks and Recreation athletic program director Houston Manning said concussions are a primary concern.

“The big focus is on concussions. If a player is suspected of having a concussion, our rules make them sit out until they have a doctor’s visit,” Manning said. “Definitely, if it’s a bad injury, (trainers) can stabilize them quicker. It’s the best thing for the kids, and I think the parents will like it, too.”

Though the Orthopedic Clinic treats injured patients, Wilson said providing the cities with certified athletic trainers will put an emphasis on injury prevention and awareness.

“This is something that the cities want to do, provide high-quality care,” he said. “We’re honored to be a part of that.”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
http://www.oanow.com/news/auburn/article_bb2a2a72-3d68-11e5-9c59-37a4e2753d3a.html

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Athletic trainers worked behind scenes at summer camps

Thibodaux and Nicholls State University were a popular summer destination for many athletes.

Throughout the summer, many current and former football players and coaches made their way to the area. Included in that number were Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Lardarius Webb, Leonard Fournette, Tre’Davious White, Kendall Beckwith, Christian Hackenberg, Jared Goff, Dak Prescott, Trevone Boykin, future Pro Football Hall of Famer Kevin Mawae, Archie Manning, Pete Jenkins, Jake Delhomme and Jarvis Green.

Nicholls was also home to summer football camps, including the Manning Passing Academy, Pro Football Combine Camp, Lardarius Webb Football Camp and Offensive/Defensive Line Camp, which was the largest in the South and attracted a record 526 players.

While the players, coaches and counselors got most of the attention, one of the most important features to all these camps along with what they do for the area middle and high schools and Nicholls is the athletic training staff at Thibodaux Regional Sports Medicine Center.

Larry D’Antoni, coordinator of the Offensive/Defensive Line Camp, said his group takes great pride and responsibility in their work despite getting little attention.

D’Antoni said credit for that goes to Thibodaux Regional Chief Executive Officer Greg Stock, who puts a high emphasis on getting the best trained people for the department.

“These young men and women understand the responsibility involved with these camps, and with the Manning Passing Academy, we are dealing with athletes from across the country and around the world,” D’Antoni said. “For some of the local camps, the parents are close and we can have almost instant contact with them when something may go wrong, but when you are dealing with young men from 48 states and foreign countries, we have to play godfather and godmother for some when an injury occurs. We worked hard to make sure the athletes are taken care of in this heat.”

D’Antoni said the athletic trainers are doing more than just a job.

“We speak about having passion for our job, but it is really more compassion because we are having to deal with possible health issues for someone else’s child,” he said. “It’s a great responsibility and we take great pride in giving these camps the highest of care. But for us, it is an everyday responsibility in dealing with young men and women from area middle schools, high schools and Nicholls. It was a great compliment to hear from one of the top representatives of Gatorade that the staff at the Sports Medicine Center of Thibodaux Regional was the most organized he had ever seen at a camp.” For the Manning Passing Academy, D’Antoni said they are responsible for the distribution of 30,000 pounds of ice, more than 3,500 gallons of water and 3,400 gallons of Gatorade for about 1,200 campers and 100 staff members.

The staff at the Thibodaux Regional Sports Medicine Center is also responsible for supporting the athletes at the Offensive/Defensive Line Camp with 3,000 gallons of water and 200 cases of bottled Power-Aid drinks. Along with the water and drinks, they also help give out gummy chews and bars along with shakes to hydrate the athletes.

Athletic trainer Ryan Trahan said the heat and humidity of south Louisiana is unrelenting, so they keep a close eye on players that may be struggling with heat-related issues.

“All these camps are a little different,” Trahan said. “The Manning Camp is more like 7-on-7 drills, but the Offensive/Defensive Line Camp is very physical and it is different because of the size of the athlete also. Some of these bigger athletes have not trained in this heat. We try and keep a close eye on every camper, but we have to have some help from the coaches, other players out on the field and the counselors because we can’t see everything out there. The Manning Camp is spread out to so many fields, so our protocol if someone is showing symptoms of heat-related problems is we quickly load them up in a golf cart and bring them inside to cool off and hydrate them immediately.

“We strive to have a good relationship with everyone involved so they can trust us even when we may not be able to see what happens out on all these different fields and that also includes what we are do with middle school and high school games. We strive to get that constant interaction with players and coaches to help us,” Trahan added.

D’Antoni and Trahan said Thibodaux Regional Medical Center is sponsoring six “dunk tanks” to the area high schools this fall to help cool off and aid in the recovery of work outs.

“I have done this for years in filling up lined garbage cans to help athletes recover when they may have a heat-related issue and also after practices to sooth the muscles and rebuild back the circulation athletes lose in these workouts,” Trahan said. “These huge dunk tanks will really be a great training feature and a huge asset to the schools.”

Athletic trainer Annalise Himmel said the summer camps are great preparation work for the upcoming high school season.

“These camps come one after the other and so we are prepared for the high school year come August,” Himmel said. “The big difference is that I work mainly at Morgan City High School, and throughout my time there, I have established a good relationship with the players and coaches and they have trust in telling me if something is not right out on the field with an athlete. With these camps players are coming from around the country so you become vigilant in trying to see everything you can. It’s mostly heat cramps or heat-related illnesses. Some of these guys will skip breakfast to get in a little more sleep so we try and help out in getting fluids in them and making sure they eat correctly. If it is a head injury or a possible concussion, we go through the steps in trying to assess this quickly and we have great equipment and doctors at Thibodaux Regional Medical Center to diagnose and treat the player.”

Amelia Mason Castell, assistant coordinator for the Sports Medicine Center who is seven months pregnant, said she normally works outside for the camps, but she had an opportunity to work with Himmel going over medical information for the Manning Passing Academy.

“Some of these young men just don’t want to miss these camps and they show up with an injury and we have to make the decision along with our medical staff to hold them out,” Castell said. “Our jobs are to watch out for heat-related problems, possible concussions or head injuries, but it could be just about anything that goes wrong medically. I am not a mom yet, but the motherish feature kicks in.”

Castell said one story from the Manning Passing Academy displayed the compassion trainers and nurses show toward athletes.

“We had a player get hit in the eye with a football, and he was from out of state and his parents didn’t accompany him here,” she said. “We brought him to Thibodaux Regional and the emergency-room nurse iced down the eye, explained to the young man that he would have to take drops for his injury and also wear sunglasses. The young man didn’t know anyone else here and didn’t have a pair of sunglasses, so the nurse told him to meet her outside the stadium the next day and she would bring a pair of sunglasses she had at home. This job is not for everyone, but it goes to show the compassion and care we try to provide here.”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20150812/PREPS/150819875/0/search?p=1&tc=pg

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Athletic Trainer Bound for Sarajevo for World Wrestling Championships

Eileen Bowker of Holgate will catch a flight to Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she will serve as an athletic trainer for Americans competing in the Cadet World Wrestling Championships.

Bowker is no stranger to travel to far-flung places in the name of wrestling; in addition to covering numerous district, region and state tournaments, she witnessed the Greco-Roman men’s team win the gold medal for the first time in Azerbaijan; she was alongside the women’s team when it first took gold at Worlds in Japan; and she and the athletes were once dinner guests of the U.S. ambassador in Mongolia.

For the upcoming trip, competition begins Aug. 25. Before that, Bowker remarked, “We have a few days to settle in and acclimatize to the surroundings and get our weight on target. The tournament concludes on the 30th and ends with a banquet for all the athletes and team members.

“It is an absolute honor to represent my hometown, school and country,” she added.

USA Wrestling, Bowker explained, “is the governing body for the country’s Olympic athlete programs. They oversee the development of our Olympians in the oldest sport of the games. (The program is) based in Colorado Springs, where we currently run our freestyle and Greco-Roman men’s and women’s programs.

“Cadets are our athletes that were born from 1999 to 2000. The wrestlers that will travel to Sarajevo for the World Championships have competed, placed and won national tournaments in the USA and are the best of our best.”

While overseas, Bowker – an allied medical professional who specializes in the prevention, care and rehabilitation of athletic injuries – will tend to the participating American athletes. “This can include new and pre-existing conditions,” she pointed out. “I am also there to support them as they maintain or cut weight in order to compete. I try to bring all of the familiar care items they may find in their athletic training facility because we all know there is no place like home.”

Here at home, Bowker has practiced athletic training full-time at New Jersey high schools for nearly three decades. She is currently employed by Pemberton Township High School.

The sport of wrestling, meanwhile, has also long been part of her life: She grew up with brothers who wrestled, she married a wrestling coach, and both of her sons wrestled for Southern Regional High School. Husband Brian was a successful high school and USA wrestling coach, and the one who introduced her to the national organization, with which she has worked since 1992.

“Initially I began by lecturing at the USA Wrestling coaches colleges,” said Bowker. “I had written and self-published a book entitled ‘Eating Your Way to Weigh In: A Wrestler’s Guide to Nutrition.’ I have authored for the organization on topics ranging from skin lesions (and) nutrition (to) injury care and prevention.

“In 1994, I began covering the USA Wrestling team trials and eventually found myself making international trips after I worked the World Championships in New York City.”

She recounted the trip to Baku, Azerbaijan, where the Greco-Roman men’s team claimed the first-place medal. “In a country where you might question what people thought of the USA, an entire stadium erupted into cheers of U-S-A!

“Wrestling is the largest fraternity I have ever witnessed,” added Bowker, who was recently appointed to New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association Wrestling Rules and Regulations Committee as the liaison to the Athletic Training Society of N.J.

Although, like this year, summertime travel is occasionally on the docket, Bowker said for the majority of most summers she is home in Holgate, where her family owns Bowker’s South Beach Deli and Grill. And even when she is away, she know the business will run smoothly. “We have the best people in town working with us,” she remarked. “Talk about the dream team of employees! They are as excited as I am for my opportunity, and I could not do it without the support of family, co-workers, friends and customers.

“I’ll leave lots of lists and I am confident it will run just like the fine-tuned deli machine that is has become.

“I have been abundantly blessed in my life,” she continued. “My husband and all four of our kids – Kayle, Emily, Brian and Seon – have been my greatest support network in each endeavor that we take on together. Then to be able to be able to call Holgate, or Beach Haven Inlet, as home, well, if you think our hands are full, you should see our hearts.”

Bowker added, in regards to the championships later this month, “Here’s to hoping that some of these athletes bring home some medals. With or without, I am confident that together we will represent, grow and cherish some new international friendship and memories.”

 

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:
http://thesandpaper.villagesoup.com/p/holgate-deli-owner-bound-for-sarajevo-as-athletic-trainer-for-cadet-world-wrestling-championships/1384793

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Margarucci named manager of player safety

Kevin Margarucci (Colorado Springs, Colo.) has been named manager of player safety it was announced today by USA Hockey.

Margarucci, who has more than 20 years of experience as a certified athletic trainer, has been involved in hockey in varying capacities (player, coach, certified athletic trainer) for more than 35 years. He will work with USA Hockey councils, committees, sections and staff in addition to external constituent groups, in all areas of safety, with a focus on education and research.

Since 2001, Margarucci has served as head athletic trainer and teacher at Lewis-Palmer High School in Monument, Colorado, where he worked with the school’s interscholastic teams and helped develop a concussion management plan for the district’s student-athletes. He has also served as assistant hockey coach at Lewis-Palmer since 2006.

Over the course of his career, Margarucci has also worked as an athletic trainer at Sierra High School, Colorado College, Maine Coast Memorial Hospital and the United States Olympic Committee.

Margarucci holds a master’s degree in athletic training from Indiana State University and a bachelor’s degree in physical education and athletic training from the State University of New York College at Brockport. He has been widely involved with the Colorado Athletic Trainers’ Association for the past 11 years, both as chair of the public relations committee (2004-07) and as part of the governmental affairs committee (2007-15).

ORIGINAL ARTICLE:

http://www.usahockey.com/news_article/show/536315?referrer_id=752796