From Jace Duke-GHATS President, and Mike Carroll-SWATA VP...
There are those in need following the recent Hurricane, and any help you may be able to offer them would be greatly appreciated.
Hull Daisetta ISD is need of athletic training supplies. Daisetta is a 1 A high school in East Texas located 35 miles from Beaumont. In the past year you may remember the East Texas “Sinkhole”. The sinkhole is located about 500 yards from campus.
The Bobcats most recently lost all of their athletic training supplies and training room during Hurricane Ike. The roof was ripped off the field house and saturated the training room, coach’s offices, etc.
Below is a list of some of the supplies they need:
Athletic Tape
Elastic Tape
Pre-Wrap
Ace Wraps
Band-Aids (various sizes)
Gauze Pads
Hull-Daisetta High School
117 N. Main Daisetta, TX 77533
Athletic Director is Joe Allen Slack
I'm sure in the coming weeks and months there will be more needs like this, and while we will not be able to help everyone, we can surely do our best.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
And The Show Must Go On...
Wow, what a wild, humbling and sometimes scary week and a half. I had effectively avoided every previous hurricane to hit my hometown, and therefore may have been slightly ill prepared for what was to come.
Thursday 9/11/2008 we were scheduled to play our varsity contest that had been pushed up in preparation for the storm. By the end of the day, the path of this Category 2 Storm had shifted so that we were directly in its path, and all events and school was cancelled for Friday.
Have you ever left one day with the thought that you would be back on Monday, and then everything changes? The strong winds and rain hit my house late Friday night and my power was out by 2:30am on Saturday morning. My family and I were mostly spared from damage, for that I am truly grateful and very blessed. We were without power for 12 days (and I celebrated my birthday in the dark :)).
After a week of recovery and repair, this great city and state and its great people began to put everything back together again, and life must go on.
Galveston, areas in the Golden Triangle, and other coastal areas were not spared from devastation. It will take a long time to rebuild and much support will be needed. Any help we can offer would be great! Any ideas on how we can reach out and help, post them here and we will get to work!
Several area athletic trainers were taking care of athletic practices with no power, ice and under a boil water notice. WOW!
I, as I know others, have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of concern and offers of help from my peers. We are an innovative and adaptive group, athletic trainers, we persevere and take care of each other.
I am so proud to be an athletic trainer!
Thursday 9/11/2008 we were scheduled to play our varsity contest that had been pushed up in preparation for the storm. By the end of the day, the path of this Category 2 Storm had shifted so that we were directly in its path, and all events and school was cancelled for Friday.
Have you ever left one day with the thought that you would be back on Monday, and then everything changes? The strong winds and rain hit my house late Friday night and my power was out by 2:30am on Saturday morning. My family and I were mostly spared from damage, for that I am truly grateful and very blessed. We were without power for 12 days (and I celebrated my birthday in the dark :)).
After a week of recovery and repair, this great city and state and its great people began to put everything back together again, and life must go on.
Galveston, areas in the Golden Triangle, and other coastal areas were not spared from devastation. It will take a long time to rebuild and much support will be needed. Any help we can offer would be great! Any ideas on how we can reach out and help, post them here and we will get to work!
Several area athletic trainers were taking care of athletic practices with no power, ice and under a boil water notice. WOW!
I, as I know others, have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of concern and offers of help from my peers. We are an innovative and adaptive group, athletic trainers, we persevere and take care of each other.
I am so proud to be an athletic trainer!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Athletic Trainers affected by Hurricane Ike
Last Friday night and early Saturday morning Hurricane Ike came ashore on the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts and left incredible damage in its path. The area around Galveston was hit the hardest. The Greater Houston area, Golden Triangle area, and western coast of Louisiana were also adversely affected. Because of that many athletic trainers were forced to evacuate their families from their homes. Now that the storm has passed these athletic trainers and their families are returning to their homes, but many are still without the certain necessities like electricity, safe drinking water, sewer, and other important things that we all take for granted in life. Also because phone service (both land lines and cell service) is spotty it has been difficult at best to determine if our friends in these areas are in need of anything.
The NATA, SWATA, and TSATA families would like to use this forum as a way for fellow athletic trainers to communicate their whereabouts, if they need assistance of any kind, and also for anyone who wants to help can do volunteer to do so. If you need assistance please do not hesitate to ask because your fellow athletic trainers can and will help you. Whether it's athletic training supplies or something as simple as clothing for your children please do not hesitate to let someone know. If you do not feel comfortable posting this in the general forum please send me a private message or e-mail me directly michael.carroll@sville.usAlso if anyone wants to make a general donation there are several organizations that would be good places to start.
Finally the NATA has set up a forum in the Think Tank titled "Urgent Information" it can be found at http://forum.nata.org/thinktanks/index.php . This Blog, the SWATA Young Professionals Blog, and the NATA Think Tanks are all excellent places to go to get information.
Also know that everyone in that region is in our thoughts and prayers.
__________________
Mike Carroll M Ed, ATC, LATHead Athletic Trainer/Assistant Athletic Director
Stephenville HS
2650 W. OverhillStephenville, TX 76401
254-552-6426 (office)
254-413-2407 (cell)
Friday, September 5, 2008
Athletic Training services to Drill teams, band, dance and flag girls?
I work at a new 4A high school with 9-11 grade and there is a situation arising on my campus that is like a fire storm, and we need fire trucks to put it out. For some reason athletic training has popped up on somebody's radar and they are aiming to control what we do.
Our district policy states that we provide services to UIL enrolled student-athletes and includes cheerleaders. (not fine arts)
We have been dealing with the whole, cheerleader and drill team issue for over a year (school opened in 2007). Well, now it has blown up. The drill team sponsor has gotten mad because she is not included. She claims that we are neglecting her kids and not recognizing them as "athletes" and not meeting their needs. She has gone as far as writing a letter to the principal and others telling them how we have refused treatments, and she goes further to say that if there was an emergency we would not assist. Our principal is worried and wants to make her happy.
So now it seems that they want to make a change to our district policies to have athletic trainers care for “all extra-curricular students” like drill, dance, flags, band,...etc.
We here at Springs are not into denying kids aid or treatments, we are just trying to follow what has been done all across the state for ages. Furthermore, we are just following what I understood to be District Policy. Taking on a whole new set of kids brings many headaches, like consent to treat issues, physicals. My advice to the school principal and personnel was that if they added a third "fine-arts" athletic trainer, there should be an increase in our budget and we wouldn't have any problems!
Please, I would like to know what you guys think on this situation.
Mayra Rodriguez, ATC, LAT
Our district policy states that we provide services to UIL enrolled student-athletes and includes cheerleaders. (not fine arts)
We have been dealing with the whole, cheerleader and drill team issue for over a year (school opened in 2007). Well, now it has blown up. The drill team sponsor has gotten mad because she is not included. She claims that we are neglecting her kids and not recognizing them as "athletes" and not meeting their needs. She has gone as far as writing a letter to the principal and others telling them how we have refused treatments, and she goes further to say that if there was an emergency we would not assist. Our principal is worried and wants to make her happy.
So now it seems that they want to make a change to our district policies to have athletic trainers care for “all extra-curricular students” like drill, dance, flags, band,...etc.
We here at Springs are not into denying kids aid or treatments, we are just trying to follow what has been done all across the state for ages. Furthermore, we are just following what I understood to be District Policy. Taking on a whole new set of kids brings many headaches, like consent to treat issues, physicals. My advice to the school principal and personnel was that if they added a third "fine-arts" athletic trainer, there should be an increase in our budget and we wouldn't have any problems!
Please, I would like to know what you guys think on this situation.
Mayra Rodriguez, ATC, LAT
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
What would you do?
You have a senior, star athlete with a knee injury that requires surgery. He's 18 and has potential to go to the next level and play. He and his parents want him to play without having surgery so as not to limit his abilities to move up. The parents have taken their son to several physicians all of whom have agreed that he needs what would be season-ending surgery. You are receiving pressure from the parents, player and coaches to play him despite what you know to be a potentially catastrophic knee injury.
What do you do?
Unfortunately, situations like these do happen and we, young athletic trainers, have to rely on our education and experience and make the right decision.
You are in a lose-lose situation. You let him play with a waiver signed by the parents and possibly the physician, he gets hurt worse, you lose (maybe everything if it gets to court despite your waiver). You don't let him play, everyone is upset with you, you lose. (There have even been cases of litigation against AT's and MD's for future possible earnings.)
The bottom line is, it is our liability. It is our responsibility. What a weight!
Luckily for me, this is not my case, but it is happening right now in California.
What would you do?
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