Reflections

On her first day working as a student athletic trainer, senior Sonja Parker witnessed football player Josue Ibarra break his leg during a game, cutting his season short to just two weeks. Parker recalled running out to the field terrified, unaware of why he couldn’t get up and unable to understand the medical jargon Walker was using to describe Ibarra’s condition.

“I couldn’t do anything,” Parker said. “I didn’t know what they were talking about – what muscles or bones were broken. I had no idea. All I remember was me being able to take off Josue’s helmet and tell him that it’s going to be okay.”

While Parker described the events of that day as the worst she has experienced on the field, learning about the human body through her training has enabled her to treat and rehabilitate fellow athletes. Furthermore, Parker no longer feels frightened to handle injuries on the field, but rather rests in the confidence of her growing expertise in sports medicine.

In her sophomore year, Parker injured her knee causing pain in her patellar tendon, which led her to Athletic Trainer Achilles Walker’s training room. After regularly visiting the training room to be taped and stretched, Parker gained an interest in becoming a student athletic trainer.

“I really wanted to be part of a sports medicine team,” Parker said.

Starting junior year, she came to Walker’s training room almost every day after school, helping until eight P.M. to tape ankles and wrists and treat athletes for sprains, concussions, and pulled muscles.

“It’s hectic. You’re going from the football field to waterpolo to volleyball to tennis,” Parker said of their fall routine.

As she hustled from sport to sport and field to gym, Parker built relationships with the fellow athletes she saw and treated every day. An unexpected element of her job description, Parker formed a strong sense of trust, community, and empathy with those around her.

“I have gotten to know so many amazing people through this, people I didn’t even know existed. I’ve met so many cool athletes…and genuine people,” Parker said.

Walker expressed how fun it’s been for him to see Parker mature and learn from her experience in high school and as his assistant, saying that, “the girl I knew years ago [and] the girl I know now are two distinct, different people.”

“She’s passionate. She’s caring. She loves to help people,” Walker said of Parker. “I want her personality to shine all the time because that’s what helps you [with] any sort of job or any training room.”

In addition, working as a student trainer has allowed her to connect with her peers on an ever higher level, whether through taping her friends before lacrosse or watching football games from the sidelines and running onto the field when the team scores a touchdown.

“You hear when the coaches are screaming. You know when the play’s going wrong. You can smell the football players and they stink, [and] when they score, you feel the excitement,” Parker said, describing the invigorating experience of watching games alongside the players. “It’s like a thrill.”

But perhaps what taught her how to empathize with other athletes the most came from experiencing an injury herself. Parker faced a defining moment in her career as a student trainer when she injured her shoulder during lacrosse, requiring her to sit out for a few weeks. Being on the receiving end of an injury gave her insight into the mix of emotions other athletes may have felt about their own circumstances.

“I remembered how it felt to be an athlete and hate not playing,” Parker said. “All those moments help you help someone else, because that gives you a new and better understanding of the anxiety and the stress and the frustration they’re going through.”

Beyond the central community aspect of her work, Parker also loves the educational benefits of learning from Walker and is always eager to rattle off the different bones in the human foot or identify symptoms relating to a type of injury. This year, Parker has enrolled in the Sports Medicine class taught by Walker to build upon her real-world experience of treating athletes.

While she no longer intends to pursue neuroscience, as she originally sought out to as a junior, Parker continues her work for her love of medicine, the community, and mentorship from Walker.

“Achilles is such a great person, and he’s become such a mentor to me,” Parker said. “Something I definitely appreciate about being a student trainer is that it’s not just a work situation. It’s definitely like a bond, like a friendship.”