Staying in the Game

WHEN MELISSA SAMPSON ’14 ARRIVED AT MOUNT ST. MARY, THE FIRST THING SHE SIGNED UP FOR WAS THE SCHOOL VOLLEYBALL TEAM. She made the squad, but when she got injured, her future in athletics was very much called into question.

But in a most ironic twist, the injury also opened up a career in athletics that has already taken her farther professionally than volleyball ever would have. Mending from her high school injury, she was exposed to the school’s athletic training program, led by Jeff Stotts.

“My first major exposure to working with Jeff was one-on-one for rehab stuff for that injury,” she said. “At the time, he had a student who was helping him, and so from there, I started helping out.”

Sampson was one of a handful of students who made up the Student Athletic Training Program, a group Stotts launched to gain some extra hands while teaching skills to help them be effective when tending to the Belles student-athletes.

“It was initially just kind of for fun,” Stotts said. “I’ve been at the Mount for 13 years, and my first year, I didn’t have anybody. My second year was when I had my first person following me around, learning, helping me out. This will be year 12 of having some kind of structure to what we’re doing.

“We progressed from one lone student to a club that’s recognized by the MSM Athletic Department as an organization. We have a true Student Athletic Trainers Club, and as of last year, I am now also teaching an Intro to Sports Medicine class that the girls can opt to take.”

It’s a really good way to offer an opportunity for our girls to have firsthand experience working with athletes, learning bedside manner and other characteristics that are going to be applicable to the world of medicine, not just sports medicine.

Left: Jeff Stotts, athletic trainer, demonstrates the proper use of a therapeutic ultrasound device to a group of student athletic trainers at Mount St. Mary.

Photo by Jason Masters

The class is open to club members and non-club members alike and draws on Stott’s medical training and experience.

“The class goes in conjunction with anatomy,” he said. “It’s a really good way to offer an opportunity for our girls to have firsthand experience working with athletes, learning bedside manner and other characteristics that are going to be applicable to the world of medicine, not just sports medicine.

“Obviously, it’s taught by an athletic trainer, so I have a sports medicine slant, but I really wanted to show them what falls under the umbrella of sports medicine and that the skills they’re learning can be applied to any medical field.”

Both the club and the one-semester class have been very popular, especially among girls who have an eye on medicine or physical therapy school. And, here and there, a stray student has emerged who’s looking at athletic training as a career.

“It’s really a growing field for women, even though it was historically dominated by men,” Stotts said. “When I went to grad school to get my master’s in athletic training, in fact, my class size was 15, and I was one of two guys in the program.

“I also want to say, when I went into grad school, I noticed most of my schoolmates had experience dating all the way back to high school. That was not the case for me. I didn’t decide to pursue this career path until I was in college, so I was behind. I definitely want this class and club to help Mount students build that foundation early.”

Which brings us back to Sampson, who so fell in love with athletic training that after graduating from the Mount, she majored in it at the University of Tulsa. After that, she served a one-year internship with the University of Washington and a two-year fellowship with the University of Arkansas football program. She’s now on the athletic training staff at Colorado State University.

“I honestly had no idea what an athletic trainer was before I got to high school. You hear more about physical therapists, which are similar, but getting to work oneon-one with Jeff, I thought this was cool and what I wanted to do,” she said.

“I’m very early in my career, but I’d like to stay at the collegiate level. There’s something about D1 athletics that appeals to me; the level of competitiveness is something I enjoy being around. One thing I value about the profession is the hands-on role I can have with studentathletes on a day-to-day basis, much like what Jeff does at the high school level. I see myself working in a clinical aspect for a good bit of time.”