Spring Tryouts

Business:

Ever want to make yourself a big sign that says “SPRING CLEANING!” and hang it up in your office for motivational purposes? That thought just crossed my mind… then I quickly realized that making a sign is just another way to procrastinate the actual cleaning of my office. Another way to procrastinate is to update this blog and that seems a little more purposeful. It’s busy and messy around here, but I’ll take that over having no jobs to send out any day. The changing of school sports seasons is always nutty, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are almost to the point where all of the jobs are on the calendar and contracts are posted. I also must mention that ticket sales are up for our ATs Against Cancer fundraiser and this is promising to be a fun event. I hope to meet you there!

Athletic Training:

The second half of each day has been fun this week. I am back to school for spring sports tryouts. Tryouts create an interesting dynamic for the public-high-school-part-time-athletic trainer. You’ve got these kids that are totally out of shape and definitely not going to make the team coming to see you for their “injuries” and for just one week(before they get cut) they are your patients. You have to coddle them through their aches and pains and then it’s likely you will never see them again. This is a little sad but I try to use the opportunity to let these kids know that their aches and pains are important to me (even for just this one week) because they are probably going to be dealt a big hand of disappointment very soon. I feel like it’s my job to be extra nice to these poor (delusional) kids.

We don’t have turf at our school and our gym has been turned into a standardized testing facility (what timing!) so our athletes practice in the parking lot, cafeteria and auditorium. Our coaches are extremely creative with these spaces. The parking lot is huge and MOST of the cars are miraculously out of the way by the end of the day. So the kids are out there impressing the coaches with their ability to not hit parked cars or busses while avoiding traffic and fielding ground balls at the same time. It’s an impressive operation we’ve got going on here. I’m surprised I haven’t seen blisters yet from wet socks, as those who haven’t learned how to catch a lacrosse ball are constantly heading into the little snow banks to find their lost balls. We are 3 days in and I have only seen a couple minor injuries. All the sand left over from the snow storms has caused a slip and fall leading to a dirty abrasion and a black eye to a player not used to taking bounces off of the pavement. All in all, the kids and coaches are doing well out there and I’m impressed with everyone’s positive attitudes.