Social Media and Athletic Training

“Don’t use social media to impress people, use it to impact people.” -Davewillis.org

Hey y’all, guess what? It is 2020!

No, we don’t have flying cars yet or an actual real hoverboard. I mean hello, when are those self-lacing sneakers from Back to the Future going to be available?

But you do know what we do have? Smartphones, the internet, and endless social media. Who would have thought that even in 2000 we would be able to post TicToks and have an amazing digital camera in the ‘palm’ of our hands?

Social media has been a big part of most people’s social and personal lives for more than a decade. We post our pictures from vacation, our dinner at the newest restaurant, political opinions, and complain about everything. But have you ever thought about what social media can do for you in terms of your career?

You’ve all seen the ads on Facebook (How do they even know I was thinking about upgrading my Keurig? I hadn’t even searched for one yet.) and the sponsored posts to instagram and twitter that celebrities and ‘influencers’ use to make money. The real question you should be asking yourself is how can I use this to help me?

I’m here to share some ways I have found that social media has helped both myself and my high school sports medicine program. I hope that you can take these stories and examples as ways to improve your way of using social media to help yourself.

1. Meeting and Networking

We’ve all heard that if you want anything in life it is all about who you know. Quite often, it turns out to be knowing people who know other people. Want your dream job? Looking for a mentor? Need money or sponsorship? All of this comes from creating relationships.

In my experience, twitter has been an invaluable tool. Sure I have a linkedin profile, but to be honest, I cannot even remember the last time I logged in. However, my twitter app is almost always open when I am on my phone.

But how does networking through an app/site like twitter work? Well, step one is to create a personal Twitter account. You can make a school or program account later if that is something you are interested in. Remember, that this site is never private no matter how many settings you change. If you put it on the internet it will be seen. But this can work in your favor. Once you have your profile set up just the way you like it, the next step is to start following people and accounts. As an athletic trainer, I try to keep the account I follow either Athletic Training related or people that I really want to follow.

        One of my favorite accounts is Haley Cruse, a softball player at Oregon who has       amazing TicTok videos.

Some recommendations to anyone out there unsure of who to start with (in no particular order):

• @ATmemes2: these are just some really fun tweets
• @WomeninAT: for my female ATs out there
• @NATA_YPC: for those AT young professionals
• @NATA_SSATC: High School ATs need to follow
• @candid_ATC: honestly one of the best AT podcasts around. Also, the polls on their twitter page are…🔥🔥🔥
• @NATA_COPA
• @go4ellis: Great PRN opportunities. Get their app and sign up
• @mnhopper1s: Umm hello he coined the hashtag #AT4All. Need I say more?
• @SWATA: Follow your districts’ twitter. SWATA just happens to be mine.
• @ATCanonymous: I like to follow this because sometimes I can help someone else who is asking questions. And every once in a while a really good question is asked that helps me.
• @Lego_ATC: Who doesn’t like legos? And now a lego AT? *Mic Drop*
• @BOCATC
• @NATA1950

Clearly, there are more than just these 13, but they are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

2. Interacting 

Now that you have followed some great profiles, it is time to start interacting. Like something that someone tweets? Don’t just hit the like button. Retweet. Heck retweet with your own comment. Or reply. Have a conversation with that person or account. Chances are the more you do this the more you will learn. And hopefully, the person on the other side is doing the same.

Something I have learned that that has been very useful for myself and my program is interacting with company social media pages. Do you like a product or a certain company? Post about it and tag the company. Is there a product you do not like or wish you could change? Post about it, tag the company and list your suggestions. Just in the year and a half, I have been at my new job I have received several offers from companies for products at little or no cost.

One example, in my first year at KHS I was in need of new treatment tables. As many of my secondary ATs know, budgets can be tight and needing to replace four tables is way too much money. So I just happened to post in a facebook group if anyone knew any programs that were planning to get rid of gently used tables. It took less than a day for me to receive a message back from the program director at Texas State University. Long story short, I was able to get three new tables that were like new. FOR FREE!!! Sure they weren’t our school’s colors, but vinyl covers are much much cheaper than whole tables.

My second examples are from this school year. If anyone who follows me on twitter knows I am a huge fan of Normatec.

    Hey Normatec reps, if you are reading this I would love to be a spokesperson.

Because of my love of the Normatec system, I started to tag the company and hashtag as much as possible. I gave great reviews (completely honest btw) and soon enough the company’s twitter account was liking and retweeting my own tweets. After about 2 months of this, I received a message from the company’s marketing team. Turns out Normatec has a High School Program that offers systems for lower rates. Two short weeks later KHS was a proud owner of a Normatec system. And before the year is out we will be buying a second because my athletic staff and students love it so much.

Now on to my biggest accomplishment yet. KHS IS WORKING TO GET A SIDELINE ER! Yup, you read that right, a 3A high school in Texas is getting this bad boy…

Alabama Sideline Tent

How the heck did I manage that? Easy, once again I just tagged the company @Kinematicsports on twitter and praised their product. I would explain why I would love to have a tent and just before winter break I received a message from a marketing rep wanting to work with us to get a tent. The best part? They wanted to try to get it for us for free.

Shoutout to Morgan Dewitt at Kinematic Sports. 

If you want to know more about this new venture just get in touch with me. I’d love to tell you about it.

3. Activity

First, you started building up accounts that you are following. Next, you started interacting with those accounts. But what is next?

Probably in my option, the biggest part of having social media as an athletic trainer is how you use it. Are you creating a Linkedin account to help out with finding a job? Great! Facebook to keep in touch with family, friends, and people you’ve met? Instagrams to follow celebs? Snapchat or TicTok to watch awesome videos? Whatever your reason is you need to find it.

For me, twitter is my biggest platform. I use this both for my personal page as well as for my sports medicine program and helping to run our boys’ basketball twitter page. Sure I have other social media platforms that I use but those are more for personal use and less for athletic training.

As an athletic trainer, you need to keep in mind that everything you post is a reflection of you. From the funny memes to the retweets or videos you post. For the sake of things, I must remind you to keep it professional.

Everyone knows that social media has its pros and cons. But the big question that many athletic trainers ask is how can I use social media to benefit myself and my profession. The answer is Advocacy!!!!

Advocating for our profession is one of the most important jobs we can do to help not just our profession as a whole but ourselves as well. Take a moment and count on your fingers how many times someone has mistaken you an athletic trainer for a personal trainer…

Run out of fingers yet?

Now I want you to think about physical therapists– Personal trainers are PTs and Physical Therapists are PTs but how many people get these two different professions confused? Not many, right? That is because the general public knows what the two are and what they do. Imagine if people thought of athletic trainers the same way.

Oh, you are an athletic trainer? That’s awesome. Thanks for all the long hours you put in preventing, treating, and rehabilitating injuries. Not to mention all of the care you take in your job! Athletic Trainers are the best!

Not going to lie if I had the above conversation with someone I think I would literally die from happiness. But it is not going to happen anytime soon. To reach conversations like these we have to educate the public on what athletic trainers are and what we do. But how?

Did you know more people get their news and information from social media than from reliable sources? If something is posted on the internet people will believe it. This is where we as everyday athletic trainers come in. We have to get the correct information out there to the public before they are exposed to stories and information that is untrue.

Going back to your activity on your social media; promote your profession. See an article about athletic training, read it, check it out for correct information and then share it. Hear about an AT doing something incredible? Share it? Scroll past an article about the importance of ATs and athlete/patient safety?? Retweet it.

Athletes at Risk?

Doing all of this puts information about athletic trainers and their importance out into the minds of others. But it’s not all you can do.

Something I have found to be very beneficial to myself and my program and sharing with others what I, as an AT, and my sports medicine program are doing to better our athletics program and the overall safety of our athletes. People love to see that you care about your athletes/patients enough that you are spending your Saturday night trying to build a new stretch board so that athletes/patients have access to more equipment (never hurts to put in there about having to do DIY because the program is strapped for cash). Or that you are fundraising to buy rain jackets for your student aides.

In fact, just this past week I had a post on my sports medicine page blow-up among high school ATs. I posted on the KHS sports medicine twitter a new way for our athletes to sign in. A simple QR that athletes could scan to save time and unnecessary paperwork for me (though I am still working out the kinks). Within minutes ATs from across the country were wanting to get it on the action. By the end of the day, I had ADs, coaches, PTs, and even a few doctors wanting to know how I did it. One simple post meant for my athletes earned me dozens of new followers and the tweet and the sports medicine page were exposed to hundreds of people. This only took 1 minute of work and yet made a huge impact for ATs.

Another awesome way social media can be a get tool for advocacy is to take a look at what @mnhopper1s has been able to accomplish. With one simple hashtag #AT4ALL, he has been able to change and impact the way athletic training is seen. Almost everywhere you look now you can see the hashtag on AT profiles, sports medicine pages, company websites and products. One simple act can go a long way.

All of this is just a start in the right direction of how using social media can help you. Don’t worry if you do not see results right away. Having a successful social media footprint takes time. We can’t all be a Kardashian or Jenner.

If you want some more resources to look into I suggest checking out this article on NATA for secondary ATs. It has some great information.

Social Media: #Power =#Responsiblity

And for some Social Media Do’s and Don’t’s head on over to this link.

Social Networking Do’s and Don’t’s

Now back to watching Tik Toks

Happy Happy Happy National Athletic Training Month

It’s finally here. National Athletic Training Month has arrived!!!

*insert happy/excited/cheering gif here*

March is much like a second Christmas for me. The Month starts out with NATM which I always find is a perfect way to help me remember how much I love my job, while I am recovering from the crazy month of February (My secondary school ATs know what I’m talking about).

March 2nd is also special to me in that it is my parent’s anniversary (I wouldn’t be here without them) and Texas Independence Day. What kind of Texan would I be if I did not celebrate the day our great state became a republic? Thank you Texas Public School, and three years of Texas History, for making me memorize the date.

Now the important question, what am I doing to celebrate a month that means so much for me? Well for those of you interested in this blog, I will be posting several informative postings about possible ways that athletic trainers can promote our profession. There will be topics on: knowing what you are worth, showing that worth to others, promoting the profession, and writing policies among others. I have been feverishly scouring the Anonymous AT twitter page looking for questions that followers have asked and giving each my own two sense.

So if any of this sounds like something you want to read about just give me a follow, like, or even comment a topic you would like to see.

Are you on twitter. Follow me @morris_atc and @KempSportsMed for a fun scavenger hunt that our sports medicine students and student-athletes will be competing in. Maybe you could even join us?

Athletic Trainer… The Other Healthcare Provider

 

 

It never fails that every time I meet someone new I will inevitably here these words, “So what is it that you do?”

Every time I respond with the same answer. I know my response will result in either a confused look or the ‘ah ha’ moment.

“An athletic trainer? What is that?”

“Athletic Trainer? Ohh, like a personal trainer?”

“Trainer. So you get people into shape?”

All of these remarks typically have me internally rolling my eyes and trying to keep from popping off an unkind remark. Would you ask what a physical therapist is? Would you think that a nurse only draws blood? Are doctors confused with veterinarians?

But this is the world we live in. In society today everyone knows the basic job description of an EMT, a nurse, a physical therapist, even a personal trainer. However, you will be hard pressed to find someone who knows what an athletic trainer is, unless that person has actually met an AT.

Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love teaching people about my profession. I find joy in hearing a student tell me they want to become an athletic trainer one day. Every time an athlete or their parents thank me for “everything that you do,” I have to admit I tear up (every damn time). Don’t even get me started on advocating for this profession. I will do anything I can to give back to the profession that gave so much to me. However, none of this keeps me from wondering, what would life be like if everyone knew what an athletic trainer was?

Key facts you should know:

• In 2013 there were an estimated 1.24 million ER visits for sports related injuries in youth under the age of 19.
• Between 2008 and 2015 there were more than 300 sport-related fatalities of young athletes.
• The secondary school (Junior High and High School) leads the nation in athletic-related deaths.
• Those between the ages of 15-17 have the highest rate of ER visits.
• 62% of sports related injuries occur during practice.
• Almost 8 million high school athletes participate in youth sports today.
• In 2014-2015, almost 60% of injuries reported to an athletic trainer by high school athletes were during a competition, the rest were during practice.
• In 2015, 50 high school athlete’s died during sports or physical activity while thousands of others have long-term complications from athletic related injuries.

(Information from At Your Own Risk, a public awareness campaign sponsored by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association designed to educate, provide resources and equip the public to act and advocate for safety in work, life. and sport.)

www.nata.org/advocacy/public-relations/at-your-own-risk 

After reading those facts can you imagine your child or any athlete you know not having access to a qualified healthcare provider at practices and games?

Me either.

But here are more stats you should know:

• In 2015 a study found that only 37% of high school in the U.S. provided full-time athletic training services. (Korey Stringer Institute)
• The State of California does not regulate athletic trainers. This means anyone can provide services of an athletic trainer. 49 other states and DC require athletic trainers to be licensed or regulated by the state.
• High School athletes with a sports-related concussion are more likely to report and receive concussion care in schools with higher availability of an athletic trainer.
• CDC estimates that 2,000 patients under the age of 25 die of sudden cardiac arrest every year in the U.S.
• Many schools can afford to hire an athletic trainer
• An AAP study found that athletic trainers can have a positive impact on student athlete health, resulting in lower injury rates, improved diagnosis and return-to-play decisions for injuries such as concussion, and fewer recurrent injuries.

Now let me back up a moment. Hopefully you are asking yourself, “What is an athletic trainer? How can I get one?”

Athletic trainers are health care professionals who collaborate with physicians to provide preventative services, emergency care, clinical diagnosis, therapeutic intervention, and rehabilitation of injuries and medical conditions. Athletic trainers work under the direction of a physician as prescribed by state licensure statues. (NATA, 2019)

So now that you know the basics of what athletic trainer is, the question should be what can an athletic trainer do for me or my school?

The answer is simple. If your school does not currently have access to an athletic trainer, parents, coaches, students, and the athletic director should all work together to try and arrange coverage. Here is a quick list of essential functions that athletic trainers contribute to student athletes.

• Develop emergency action plans (who cares for your child in an emergency? what is everyone’s role?)
• Monitor field, environment, and weather conditions (who is making sure your child is safe? Who is preventing injuries before they happen?)
• Coordinate injury prevention programs (Pre-hab is better than Rehab)
• Prepare athletes for practice and games (Are coaches taping and wrapping your athletes? How do you know they are doing it properly?)
• Communicate with physicians about injuries (Do you know the difference between a sprain and strain? What about ACL reconstruction and Tommy John surgery? What is baseline testing and return to play protocols?)
• Treat and rehab injuries
• Help determine return-to-play programs

I found that Go 4 Ellis has a great poster that demonstrates the need for athletic trainers.

There are so many reasons that schools and sports teams should have athletic trainers present for games and practices. Athletic trainers’ reach goes far beyond that of high school sports. Athletic trainers can be seen in colleges, professional sports, performing arts, military, rodeo, Fortune 500 companies, clinics, hospitals, and the list goes on. Athletic trainers provide so many functions to keep their patients and clients safe. “Your protections is our priority!” (NATA, National Athletic Training Month 2017 slogan)

Back to my question of what would the world could be like if everyone knew what an athletic trainer was. Currently only about a third of high schools have access to a full time athletic trainer. But could we change that to every high school? What about those 2000 deaths from sudden cardiac arrest every year? Athletic trainers have advanced knowledge of first aid, CPR, and AED usages. Would that 2000 drop below 500?

Every year over a million people visit the Emergency Room for sports related injuries. Is this because athletic trainers are not present. Of the 50 deaths in 2015, could that number have been cut by 50%, 75%, even 90% if every school had an athletic trainer?

In a world where athletic trainers are as mainstream as school nurse, would the rates of sport related injuries during practices fall from 62% to 20%? We can only imagine.

This March is National Athletic Training Month. The image at the beginning of this post is the poster for this year’s campaign. I implore you to do your research on athletic trainers and whether your school has one. It takes more than one voice to make a change. #AT4ALL

 

Pumpkin Spice EVERYTHING!!!!

Lattes, home fragrances, pumpkin spice… pumpkin pies. When will the madness stop? Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of fall. Sweaters and boots are my shit. Give me football and hot chocolate, a Hocus Pocus movie night, and the death of the Louisiana state ‘bird’ the motherf***ing mosquito. My legs are begging for a break from the uneven tan lines of summer camps and football camp and the whelps that cover all of my flesh from the tiny blood-sucking demons.

But as a GA Athletic Trainer, fall is a season that is both a glorious time of the year and can also be considered a slow and torturous death.  It comes with a pile of school work, homework, thesis papers, comprehension test studying not to mention all of the rehabs and treatments that have to be planned for all athletes. (I work with over a hundred track & field athletes) Oh, and did I forget to mention the ever-changing practice schedules? Like who even changes the practice times of a team 15 minutes before it was originally supposed to start?

The current need for a coffee every three or four hours is a routine. I used to never like drink coffee and when I did I barely drank an entire cup. Now I have two or three cups a day when I can not find the time to take a nap. I am fairly certain that the baristas at the local ‘Starbucks’ on campus know my order the moment I walk in. Carmel Macchiatos anyone? But as the pile of class work continues to pile up, I am finding myself using my planner more as a step-by-step how-to guide to get through my day instead of just a suggested how to.

I decided to start this blog to post and sometimes vent about the struggles of my life and hopefully post about the amazing things I get to do and see. I have always liked the idea of write and sharing my stories and what better way to do it then start a blog? And if anyone out there likes what they read and wants to adapt the story into a movie… I am pretty firm that you must cast Emma Roberts as me.

So here’s to what will hopefully be a wild ride. Peace out, Girl Scout!

-Vic