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USF provides first responders

Certified athletic trainers are placed at 10 schools.

By Joel Poiley Times Correspondent
Published October 19, 2007

That signaled Michele McCoy's call to action.

A trainer who works for the SMART Institute, an arm of the Department of Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine at the University of South Florida, McCoy quickly assessed Daniels' shoulder injury.

A certified athletic trainer since graduating from Appalachian State University in 1993, McCoy got her master's degree in sports psychology from San Diego State.

She is assigned to Freedom full time, with an office at the school. On Sept. 14, she traveled with the football team for its game at Gaither and was ready when Daniels recoiled on the ground in pain. Daniels left the field under his own power and later returned. But that illustrated the need for McCoy and other certified trainers working full time at 10 high schools throughout the county.

The USF College of Medicine was given a $3.5-million grant to restart the Orthopaedics Department last year. From that, the Sports Medicine and Athletic Related Trauma Institute (SMART) was born.

Dean Stephen Klasko then decided to start a community sports safety initiative with high schools, the only one in the state.

Besides Freedom and Gaither, other schools with a full-time trainer are Blake, Plant City, Durant, Bloomingdale, Alonso, Lennard, Brandon and Riverview.

For trainers like McCoy and the schools where they work, it's a win-win for all involved, particularly since USF provides all equipment and funding.

McCoy started with USF in February and was assigned to Freedom. She stays each day until the last varsity and junior varsity event is finished. She gets help from USF students in the school's athletic training program. Team physicians are always on hand.

Armed with automatic external defibrillators and muscle stimulators on the sideline, along with crutches, splints and larger items all provided free of charge to the school, McCoy said she and her assistants are prepared to handle catastrophic injuries such as a cervical spine injury.

"Short of someone actually dying on the field from a concussion or second impact, a cervical spine injury is a catastrophic injury that we are all prepared to deal with," McCoy said.

McCoy was working in Miami for the U.S. Tennis Association. But she wanted to return to the bay area and jumped at the opportunity when she saw what USF was doing with high schools.

She said seeing the impact of her work at her school on a daily basis is gratifying

"When I was in San Diego, a kid who was our starting running back blew out his ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), MCL (medial collateral ligament), his PCL (posterior cruciate ligament and his medial (and) lateral meniscus (of the knee)," McCoy recalled. "He planted to cut to dive into the end zone and he got hit and tore everything. He wasn't able to go to college without a football scholarship. He was trying to be the first one in his family to go to college.

"So through the clinic I was working for, and mostly me being at the school every day, we were able to rehab him and he was running three months later, and he played his senior season and got a full scholarship to Colorado State University."

McCoy also worked with students at the San Diego school who were interested in athletic training as a possible career. She hopes to do the same at Freedom as she gets more entrenched.

Her counterpart on Gaither's sideline, Victoria Kean, 26, also made a difference this year at her school, though not on the field.

A student in gym class several weeks ago reported chest pains. Kean started emergency care, and he later had surgery on his heart.

"They said that it would've been sudden cardiac death, and that having someone there may have saved his life," said Kean.

[Last modified October 18, 2007, 07:17:28]