Athletic trainers advance sports safety

MARENGO — Compass Memorial Healthcare is recognizing its athletic trainers as it celebrates National Athletic Training Month.

The hospital has been providing athletic trainers to area high schools for about 10 years. It started the program to be more proactive, said Compass Memorial Chief Executive Officer Barry Goettsch.

Recently the five schools served by Compass certified athletic trainers — Belle Plaine, English Valleys, HLV, Iowa Valley and Williamsburg — earned the Safe Sports School Award from the National Athletic Trainers Association, something only seven schools in the state have accomplished.

The Safe Sports School Award recognizes secondary schools around the country that take crucial steps to keep their athletes free from injuries, says the National Athletic Trainers Association.

Among other requirements, Safe Sports Schools must provide or coordinate sports physicals, promote safe practice and competition facilities, plan for selection and maintenance of athletic equipment, develop injury and illness prevention strategies and provide permanent, create emergency action plans and appropriately equipped areas to evaluate and treat injured athletes.

The schools apply for the award, said Goettsch, but it was all driven by the athletic trainers.

“It differentiates us from other schools in the area,“ said Ashley Dickey, athletic trainer for English Valleys High School. “We’re providing comprehensive care,” not just handing out water and bandages.

“Having this certification is pretty unique, especially for such a small setting,” said Chance Baburek, who has been with Belle Plaine High School for less than two years.

“I’m actually from Belle Plaine,” said Baburek. He participated in sports while in high school and had planned to pursue a career in physical therapy, he said.

A friend in the physical therapy program changed Baburek’s plan. “He actually kind of introduced me to athletic training rather than PT.”

The University of Iowa graduate likes athletic training better, he said, because he gets to work with the athletes every day.

Cale Jamesson will celebrate his one year anniversary at Iowa Valley High School a year in May. “It’s been awesome. Coming out of a college program into this has been seamless.”

The community and the hospital have been amazing, he said.

Jamesson grew up in Keystone, graduating from Benton Community School District in 2016. He played football and baseball during high school and played baseball for Cornell College in Mount Vernon while earning a degree in kinesiology there.

Jamesson received his master’s degree in athletic training from the University of Iowa in May and accepted a position with Iowa Valley.

Rhianna Freiburger has been Williamsburg High School’s athletic trainer for 5 1/2 years. She grew up in Manchester, which is similar in size to Williamsburg, she said. She knew she wanted to be involved somehow with sports and with medicine.

Freiburger’s high school didn’t have an athletic trainer, so she wasn’t familiar with the position until she found an athletic trainer program at Luther College.

Freiburger earned her master’s degree and doctorate from A.T. Still University in Mesa, Arizona.

Dickey in her sixth year at English Valleys. Originally from Ankeny, Dickey attended the University of Northern Iowa and “kind of fell into athletic training.”

Dickey earned her master’s degree at A.T. Still and remained in Arizona, working for a large school for about 10 years.

When Dickey returned to Iowa, she worked mostly during athletic events. Schools were paying her salary, so she was limited to the number of hours schools could afford.

In her current position with Compass, Dickey can work full time and attend practices as well as games.

“We’re allowed to be at our school 100% of the time,” said Dickey. That’s better not only for the trainers but for the students, she said. “It’s really hard to treat an athlete you don’t know very well.”

“I think it’s one of the biggest reasons we’re successful,” said Freiburger. The students know the trainers before they’re hurt, she said. “[They] know to seek us out.”

Students trust their trainers, said Freiburger. ”We know them personally, and I think they feel valued and appreciated.“

“We are very lucky that we work through Compass,” said Baburek. “Schools don’t have to pay us.” That doesn’t happen anywhere else in the country, he said.

The athletic trainers have access to doctors and physical therapists at Compass. “I can’t speak highly enough of how lucky we are,” said Baburek.

One of the biggest parts of the job is injury prevention, said Freiburger. If the trainers aren’t with teams full time they can’t prevent much, she said. They can’t see trends or address them.

The athletic trainers are part of the student athletes’ physicals as well, said Dickey. They can access each student’s physical needs.

Having the medical histories of the students allows the trainers know what athletes are prone to what injuries, said Baburek.

The athletic trainers meet monthly with Goettsch, who heads the Compass sports medicine department. The trainers share their experiences, brainstorm ideas and solve problems together.

As co-chairs of the Iowa Athletic Trainers Society Secondary School Committee, Dickey and Freiburger are privy to what’s coming up in legislation or in education and can relay that information to the other trainers, said Freiburger.

A lot of the work the trainers are doing drives a new attitude toward sports injuries, said Goettsch. Concussions, for example, are taken more seriously than they used to be. Treatment of athletic injury is getting better, he said.

“I think you’d be surprised how little that has progressed [before athletic trainers],” said Goettsch.

Michael Ouellette is also a Compass athletic trainer though he is not currently assigned to a school.