From a pulled muscle to a sprained ankle, all of the trainers here at McDaniel College do their best to ensure the safety of our athletes. It takes a special person to do what Kelsey Boulier, a graduate assistant athletic trainer, does every day.
Boulier’s everyday job includes the prevention and treatment of injuries, the development of rehabilitation programs and much more. The job of a trainer isn’t to just wrap a boo-boo, but to correctly identify injuries and configure a system in order to get athletes better and back to playing the sports they love.
Each athletic trainer is assigned a team for each season, giving everyone a relatively even workload. The trainers also have direct communication to their team’s physician, which allows them to schedule appointments if an injury is too serious and requires a doctor’s opinion.
The trainers are aided by the help of student workers, who help put a system in place so all of the trainers, including Boulier, can focus on the athletes.
“We have student workers to get all of the water set up for practiced and games which saves us time to do treatments and taping,” says Boulier.
The pressure put on the trainers to get their jobs done and keep athletes healthy isn’t just from the athletes themselves. Boulier notes that coaches, parents and doctors all rely on her to do her job efficiently and correctly.
“[Working without] access to certain types of equipment [such as] Game Ready, traction tables, and SwimEx is a large challenge,” Boulier says. But with every challenge there is always a benefit.
“Seeing all different kinds of injuries and having multiple athletic trainers around to bounce ideas off of each other is great,” she adds.
“I believe that we are an important part of each team,” says Boulier.
In her two years working as a McDaniel College athletic trainer, Boulier says the best part of working with athletes is getting to know them and being able to watch them go from their initial injuries back to competition. Boulier adds that working at McDaniel is even better for giving her the opportunity to work one-on-one with our athletes.
Being a trainer is much more than tape and ice — it’s being a part of the McDaniel athletics family.
