The Nicholls Athletic department would find itself in a state of disarray without the skilled athletic training staff’s expertise in the prevention and treatment of student athletes’ injuries.
     Sports related injuries are inevitable in college athletics. The Colonels football team sees more frequent and serious injuries than any sport on campus due to the nature of the game. Graduate Assistant Athletic Trainer Kyle Wilson has seen his fair share of minor and major injuries amongst the team members this fall. “They have the most injuries of any team at Nicholls because there is man-to-man contact in every play.The guys are constantly taking big hits,” he said.     
      It is a common misconception that an athletic trainer’s duties are limited to taping wrists and ankles and carrying water bottles to players. Each graduate assistant athletic trainer is in charge of specific teams and providing the necessary care and treatment to their athletes. Wilson, who also works with the Nicholls baseball team, said, “We do so much more than taping and icing. With a lot of the athletes, if something goes wrong in the middle of the night, they call us. They trust us to take care of them.”
     The Nicholls State athletic training staff is comprised of a head athletic trainer, associate athletic trainer, four graduate assistant certified athletic trainers and athletic training students completing their clinical hours. Nicholls recently lost its head athletic trainer, Krista Bayers, to Fresno State. While Wilson and his fellow employees await the arrival of her replacement, extra responsibilities such as communicating with injured athlete’s physicians and other healthcare professionals are added to their already heavy workloads.
      Nicholls State offers an athletic training curriculum that sets students up for success in the demanding career as an athletic trainer and other related fields. The program lasts four years and is split into the pre-professional and professional phases. In the pre-professional phase, students fulfill general education requirements along with their first two athletic training courses, Careers in Sports Medicine and Clinical Introduction to Athletic Training.
     Upon completion of the first phase, students apply for the professional, or clinical, phase of the program. They complete 1,120 hours of hands-on clinical experiences in preventing, evaluating, managing and rehabilitating injuries in the athletic training facilities at Nicholls, local high schools and physicians’ offices in the area.
      Reece Vitale is one of the few student athletes that is a member of the athletic training program on campus. As a level two athletic training student, Vitale has forgone a social life in an attempt to manage his time between completing clinical hours, attending practice and taking care of his regular course load. “I run in the morning, go to class, go to clinicals, go home, eat, shower, do homework, sleep, get up and run again,” he said. His ultimate goal upon graduation is to become a physical therapist that works exclusively with sports related injuries. “The program here lines me up to become a physical therapist, but I don’t want to work with stroke patients. I want to work with athletes,” he said.