Monday, February 20, 2012

All Sportsed Out?

Having just spent the last hour and a half in my office eagerly waiting in front of my computer screen for Indians tickets to go on sale, my work schedule in front of me, games carefully picked out on days that I actually have free, I started to think on the number of times I've heard my fellow ATCs tell me they don't watch professional sports.  College athletic trainer friends of mine often say they'd rather watch college sports, where the athletes are (technically) still there to have a good time.  High school athletic trainer friends say that more sports on top of their current work duties would just be too much.

Personally I've never understood this.  I'm in this profession because I love sports.  I can't get enough!  I think the problem comes from us as athletic trainers training ourselves to be tense and on alert during sporting events.  Have you ever tried going to one of your school's games as a spectator?  It's nervewracking, and generally you end up on the field treating some injury or another anyhow.

Even watching games on tv with other ATCs, I've noticed a tendency towards settling into our most comfortable "ready to run" position completely unconsciously.  If an athlete goes down on the screen?  All bets are off.  We're all ready to jump up, and then of course all suddenly feel silly. 

Here's the thing guys - we do what we do because we love sports, otherwise we'd be physical therapists or EMTs.  I find that if I'm not wanting to feel like a silly person while watching them, the best thing to do is find other athletic trainers to watch with.  That when when your favorite team's quarterback is down on the field and they're showing the athletic trainers out there along with a mass amount of instant replay footage, you can assess the mechanism of injury and judge the performance of your occupational fellows alongside other people who get it. 

Sure, we can't relax when we watch sports, but we can still have a good time.

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