High school students interested in athletic training participated in Seton Hall's Athletic Training day, a workshop organized by the Athletic Training club in order to promote March as Athletic Training month.
Students from high schools in the area attended workshops from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the first floor of Jubilee Hall, listening to speakers and working hands on with graduate students in the AT program.
The goal of athletic trainers is to take athletes from their worst day to their greatest day," Tony Testa, head athletic trainer and director of sports management at Seton Hall, said.
Testa, who has a degree in sports medicine and works closely with the University's student athletes, spoke to the students about the benefits of a sports medicine degree and educating trainers at a college level.
Professor Carolyn Goeckel, chair of the department of athletic training, introduced the workshop to promote the rules and responsibilities of the profession. Goeckel has been involved in this profession for more than 30 years and said these trainers are important because they are helping and "involved in the well-being" of athletes.
Richard Boergers, a doctoral candidate in movement science at Seton Hall, gave a presentation and demonstration about acute management of spine injured lacrosse athletes. Boergers specializes in emergency care of lacrosse players with spine injuries and received at $10,000 grant from the New York State Athletic Trainers Association for management of study of this type of injury.
All speakers said athletic trainers do their best to prevent injury, give immediate care and rehabilitate injured athletes.
A panel of graduate students discussed how and why they approached the study of sports medicine and what made them choose athletic training specifically. One student was impressed more by the study of kinesiology than his original plan of sports business. Another said he was influenced to get his degree after recovering from a torn ACL in his undergraduate years.
The University hosts one of about 20 entry-level athletic training master's programs in the country, according to one of the graduate students in the program.
Interested students attended five separate hands-on training stations including taping, scenarios, plyometrics, concussions and ankle rehabilitation.
Athletic training student Joshua Lee demonstrated proper ankle taping on a student during the first exercise in order to instruct how to safely and efficiently help an athlete with a sprained ankle.
Lauren Conrad, a senior from South Plainfield High School, said that she came to the program because she plans on working with high school athletes.
Junior Katherine Podlovits, an athlete in two sports, said she wanted to learn about taping and other types of care so she can be of help to her teammates.
Charlotte Lewis can be reached at charlotte.lewis@student.shu.edu.
