Adding trainers is a SMART call

Jen Stollery always has her hands full at practice.

The 26-year-old is neither player nor coach, but once Wiregrass Ranch High football practice starts, the athletic trainer is moving non-stop, juggling her numerous jobs.

"I do feel like I'm keeping all the balls in the air," said Stollery, the Bulls' full-time athletic trainer for this season. "There's a lot of responsibilities for my job, but it's what I do. Every trainer always has a long to-do list."

Stollery is one of nine athletic trainers from the USF Department of Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine and its Sports Medicine & Athletic Related Trauma Institute (SMART) who will be on a public-school campus for every sport for this school year. Football is the biggest concern now, but the trainers will work in every sport and at every home game until the last day of school.

"We handle their health and injuries - of every athlete, of every sport - that way the coaches can coach," Stollery said.

The 2010-11 school year is the first time Pasco County public schools have had trainers, but it's limited to Wiregrass and Sunlake. Seven Hillsborough County public schools have athletic trainers from the USF program: Blake, Bloomingdale, Brandon, Freedom, Plant City, Riverview and Steinbrenner.

"It is a little unusual for a school to have an athletic trainer," Stollery said, "and you want every school to have what the other has, but it's tough. Though this experience is perfect for anything in our (sports medicine) program."

The SMART Institute and its department foot the bill, thanks in large part to a 2005 state grant. The athletic trainer receives an entry-level salary, but the cost of the position to the department is between $60,000 and $65,000.

"This costs the school district nothing," said Barbara Morris, assistant program director for the SMART Institute. "I've been doing (athletic training) for 17 years, and if I had to pick, I would (work with high school athletes and sports). It's a great opportunity, no matter if it's a younger or more experienced athletic trainer."

The athletic trainers are given undergraduate students from the department, while others are dispatched to fellow schools to help out where they can. The undergrads help out the athletic trainers with daily duties such as treating injuries, taping joints, keeping water jugs filled, monitoring the team's hydration habits and being a part-time meteorologist. Stollery keeps an eye on inclement weather with the help of a lightning detector.

"It's perfect for alleviating some of the time elements coaches usually have to put in," Sunlake football coach Bill Browning said. "All the taping and other things I've done in the past is done now and it's great to have someone who is well versed medically. It's helpful for any program because it means I have someone there to rehab and treat the guys who can't practice. That way I can worry about practice."

The athletic trainer's day begins at around 10 or 11 a.m., starting with paperwork and documentation of injuries from the previous day. Then they check in with the school's athletic director to see if there are any pressing matters with an athlete. Once the sixth and seventh periods roll around, the trainer's work becomes vital to each sport, as they work with athletes to rehab injuries or get in extra prep work before practice.

That is, as long as they legitimately need it.

"I'm old school, so I like to be on the same page as the trainer," Browning said. "When you have a trainer, all of a sudden you have injuries and owwies - those injuries that aren't injuries and players start taking advantage because they have a mosquito bite.

"But with the trainer worrying about injuries and owwies, it gets players back sooner, real injury or not."