This year, Liberty has all new athletic trainers starting fresh because last year, the athletic training program was made up of mostly seniors.

“All the athletic trainers from last year who were seniors graduated, Liberty only has three student athletic trainers,” said Coach Carter.

Coach Carter has been the athletic trainer here at Liberty for ten years. She teaches the Sports Medicine classes and trains students to successfully become student athletic trainers. Personally for Coach Carter, she had her own reasons as to why she got into the field of sports medicine.

“During high school, I experienced a knee injury and I worked with our athletic trainer at Liberty High School. It opened my eyes towards the profession so I signed up for classes and the after school athletic training program,” said Coach Carter.

For different seasons of sports, there are many different responsibilities and jobs for athletic trainers. Starting with the fall, athletic trainers have to train for football, volleyball, field hockey, golf, and cross country,

“Fall is the toughest because of the 1st round of paperwork coming in, but the spring is the most hectic due to the amount of sports teams/ athletes,” said Coach Carter.

“Fall is the hardest because of football season and in the spring there’s about 400 athletic people,” said junior Daphne Daymude.

To be able to be a student athletic trainer, a student has to take Sports Medicine 1 and has to learn a lot of ways to be able to help injured athletes. students take Sports Medicine 1 for many different reasons.

“I decided to take Sports Medicine 1 because I am interested in doing something in the medical field when I’m older,” said junior Gretchen Thomas.

“I am interested in being an athletic trainer for the school as well as for a career,” said junior Kali Black.

“I took Sports Medicine 1 because I wanted to explore it because I don’t really know what I want to do when I grow up! I want to see if I would be interested in the career,” said Daymude.

In sports Medicine 1, students have a lot of duties and responsibilities to take care of to prepare themselves to become student athletic trainers.

“Each day we have duties where we restock everything and get everything ready for after school sports,” said junior Bethany Murray.

“At the end of class each day we get to clean the water bottles, do laundry, and organize the kits to help get ready for sports after school,” said junior Amber Beverley.

“I wash/wipe down water bottles and water jugs. We learn from PowerPoints and do fun review games. Also, we watch educational medical videos,” said Thomas.

After taking Sports Medicine 1, students get to be a student athletic trainer if they choose and there are more duties and responsibilities for students.

“Some of my responsibilities are being at every game and practice, giving players treatment, cleaning equipment, and filling up water,” said junior Ella Heart.

“Some of the jobs I have to do is wrap, taping injuries, providing water, cleaning bottles, and just helping Coach Carter,” said senior Jewel Reynolds.

Even though becoming a student athletic trainer is a lot of responsibility and hard work, it is still an experience that is worth their while.

“My favorite thing about being a student athletic trainer is making new friendships with players on the teams and learning new things,” said Hart.

“I love sports! You are able to not only watch the sports, but become part of the madness. I love being there to support the girls, but I also get to hang out with amazing coaches,” said Reynolds.