They were just the kids with the water. At least that was how Melanie Trevino remembers some athletes looking at the student athletic trainers when she was just starting out at Las Cruces High School.
Then she learned and she watched and she practiced. She taped enough ankles that the movements became familiar. And gradually, the conversations changed.
“Mel, can I have that?”
“Mel, can you get that?”
“Mel, can you help me?”
Across Las Cruces Public Schools’ four traditional high schools, student athletic trainers occupy an unusual place in high school sports. They are classmates of the athletes they treat and sometimes athletes themselves. They are students, but they spend hours learning medical terminology, anatomy, injury treatment, rehabilitation and emergency procedures.
And while everyone else watches the game, they learn to watch something else.
They’re looking for an awkward landing, a player favoring an ankle, someone coming to the sideline complaining of a headache, a teammate trying to work back from an injury. The job begins well before they are trusted to do much about any of it.
At Centennial High School, senior Isaac Holguin moved through health-care careers and sports medicine classes before entering athletic training. At Organ Mountain, senior Talen Mays followed a similar path, beginning with health-care occupations before studying the body, injuries, bones and muscles and eventually moving into the hands-on work of athletic training.
At Mayfield, senior Aven Benavente had to submit an essay and go through an interview process to enter the program, then pass different skill levels as she progressed.
The skills can sound like the beginnings of a medical-school checklist: CPR, wound care, splinting, heat illness, vital signs and taping ankles, wrists and thumbs. Taping is a favorite. Mays, who has played soccer since he was 3 and still plays for Organ Mountain, likes the rhythm of it.
“It’s just a lot of fun once you get the hang of it because it’s like a fluid motion,” he said.
Trevino said taping came naturally to her, but there is considerably more to it than wrapping a roll of tape around an ankle. Anchors hold pre-wrap in place. Stirrups stabilize the ankle. Heel locks help restrict unwanted movement.
“People don’t think that so much goes into it,” she said. “They’re like, ‘Oh, you just wrap some tape around the ankle,’ but in reality, there’s certain things that are actually doing certain things for you.”
Eventually, athletes notice the difference, too. Holguin remembers being so uncomfortable when he entered Centennial’s program that he considered dropping the class.
“I was just so shy and to myself,” he said.
He stayed. As he spent more time treating athletes, conversations came easier. Players began letting him into their circle. By the end of his junior year, he felt comfortable in a room that once intimidated him, and athletes had begun asking him for advice.
“I guess it comes with time and trust from the other people,” Holguin said.
That trust comes with boundaries. The students work under certified athletic trainers, but they aren’t making the final decision about whether an injured athlete returns to a game. Benavente said if a player reports symptoms of a concussion, she can recognize the warning signs and report them, but the certified trainer takes over the evaluation. If an injury might determine whether someone returns to the field, that decision also belongs to the certified trainer.
“I’ll kind of be there just shadowing, trying to see what they’re doing, how they figure out the diagnosis,” Benavente said.
Trevino said students may learn how particular injury tests are performed without being permitted to perform them when a serious injury is suspected.
“We know how to do like concussion tests, we know how to do the ACL tests and all that,” she said. “If we do suspect somebody having torn something, we’re not allowed to actually perform it on them, but we do know how.”
The point is to learn, and much of that learning happens by doing. Mays describes the athletic training room almost like a laboratory. There is still classwork, he said, but by the senior level much of the education is hands-on, working with athletes while experienced trainers are there to teach when something unfamiliar happens.
Holguin said Centennial’s trainers sometimes let students take the first look at an athlete with an injury, then use the evaluation as a teaching opportunity. Students may also help athletes with exercises or treatments such as electrical stimulation.
As they gain experience, the students begin passing that knowledge along.
Benavente remembers juniors and seniors walking her through the basics when she was new to the Mayfield program. Now she does the same thing for younger trainers, teaching them skills such as taping and helping them become involved. Trevino calls it taking them “under my wing.”
“I’ll teach them the ropes,” she said. “I’ll teach them what I know.”
There is another reason the four students understand the athletes they work with so well: They aren’t far removed from them.
Mays is still playing soccer. Holguin plays golf and handball. Trevino played volleyball for about eight years and is now a powerlifter.
Trevino has experienced injuries herself which makes rehabilitation one of her favorite parts of athletic training. She understands the mental side of being unable to compete. Working with an injured athlete through rehabilitation gives her the chance to help someone get past that barrier and return to competition.
“I feel like I really like running rehabs with our athletes because it just gives me a sense of importance,” Trevino said. “I know for a fact that I’m helping somebody get back to doing what they love.”
The work also requires a commitment that isn’t always visible from the stands.
Holguin can arrive at Centennial at 7 a.m. for morning treatments, go through a full school day and then work a football game. An away game can mean getting home around 2 a.m.
Benavente doesn’t mind the travel. In fact, the rides to and from football games with the other student trainers and the school’s athletic trainer are among her favorite parts of the experience. All four students feel what happens after the games may be the most lasting benefit of the experience.
Benavente plans to attend Northern Arizona University, major in kinesiology and pursue athletic training, with a goal of someday becoming a head athletic trainer at a high school. Trevino has been accepted into New Mexico State University’s kinesiology program and hopes eventually to work in major college or professional sports.
Mays also plans to study kinesiology and ultimately become a physical therapist. Watching his father go through physical therapy first exposed him to the field, and athletic training has given him a closer look at a profession built around helping people recover.
“I think it’s really helped me know that this is the path that I want to be in,” Mays said.
Holguin is considering kinesiology or sports medicine as he weighs his college choices. What began as an interest influenced partly by his father, a physical therapist, became more certain through his experience in the training room.
“I’ve discovered my passion and how much motivation I have just to learn about the whole career,” Holguin said. “I feel like I’m almost meant to help people in a way.”
Trevino sees that progress measured in something much smaller than a college or career decision. She started helping with football camp the summer before her freshman year. Back then, there was that perception of “carrying the water.” As she learned more and took on more responsibility, athletes began calling her by name and treating her differently. Now Trevino is one of the people athletes seek out when they walk into the training room needing help.
“Can I have Mel tape me?” they ask. “Can I have Mel wrap me?”
“I know what I’m doing,” Trevino said. “I’ve been doing it for so long that there’s that level of trust within me.”
That trust extends to the athletes she helps. Over the course of four years, she’s earned it.
