Creating an Athletic Training Schedule for Practices and Competition

Secondary school sports have many moving parts to evaluate in developing an athletic department’s mission and developing the program to minimize the risk of injury for students and staff. The most important part is the safety and wellbeing of student-athletes, coaches and support staff as they work within the district’s athletic programs. Setting, maintaining and re-evaluating the athletic training and emergency procedures is critical to the safety of athletic participants and also beneficial to the staff and parents of the participants.

There are many important factors to consider in the development of athletic training coverage for high school athletic events. Stakeholders must be included in the development of the overall athletic training coverage to ensure that it is appropriate. School administration, police and fire departments, athletic training staff and school officials should all be included in the development of the secondary athletic training safety program.

When developing the district’s coverage plan, one needs to consider several items such as how many schools are in the district, the uniqueness of each athletic facility within the schools, and how many different city police and fire departments are located within the school district’s boundary lines. Depending on how these questions are answered will determine the people who are sitting at the table for the development of the overall coverage plan.

In developing the overall athletic training plan, the focus should be coverage of events within the secondary athletic program. Breaking down all the components are important to successful coverage. The following items are the important parts of an athletic training coverage schedule.

1. Adequate number of certified athletic trainers.

2. Definition of the sport.

3. Number of sports teams to cover.

4. Location of each venue.

5. The use of full-time, part-time or contract coverage.

6. Setting the schedule.

7. Administration being mindful of the hours the athletic trainer is requested to work.

Adequate number of athletic trainers is the most important part of proper coverage for athletic events at the secondary level. The importance of the athletic training staff is many times overlooked. It is important to present data-driven information to the school administration to ensure the proper number of athletic trainers are employed by the school district. Items to remember when asking for athletic training staff coverage.

a. Education of what a certified athletic trainer is and what the individual brings to the district.
b. Number of total teams by sport.
c. Total number of student-athletes in your program.
d. Number of scheduled home games.
e. Benefits of an athletic training coverage at the secondary level.
f. Safety of students and staff.

Sports are defined as high or low contact. High contact or collision would include football, wrestling, basketball, soccer and low contact would be volleyball, softball, baseball, tennis. With these definitions of the sports it allows the athletic training schedule to be developed with safety of students in mind. Low contact sports can be covered by one athletic trainer moving from one venue to another as long as the trainer has communication with each venue.

When looking at the number of sports, administrators should remember that the sports offered are more than football, volleyball and basketball. Oftentimes, each sport will have varsity, junior varsity and freshman levels. For example, during a fall season there may only be five sports competing but in reality there could be 4-5 teams per sport because of the different levels. This is a vital consideration when developing the athletic training coverage schedule.

It is important to know the locations of sport venues and the time required to travel from Point A to Point B. This is critical to know when there is only one athletic trainer covering multiple practices or games. In a multi-school district, the administrator must also know that all schools do not have the same number of teams or similar facilities, so each school’s coverage requirements may be different.

In many states, the athletic trainers are the only members of the athletic department staff that are required to be certified or licensed and are required to maintain their credentials. Full-time athletic trainers are always preferred when it comes to event coverage. Because of game schedules with overlapping events the reality is that the school may need to hire a contract athletic trainer to safely cover all the activities on any given night.

Creating a schedule of all practices and competitions is the first step in developing practice and game coverage. Upon completion of this schedule, the administrator can begin to assign who will cover which event. It is important to remember this is a fluid document that will have constant changes throughout the season. Communication between the athletic director’s office, principals, sport coaches and the athletic trainers has to be done on a daily basis. Developing the coverage schedule can start at this point.

One method of development is a simple number system. If a school has four athletic trainers, then number the events 1-4 throughout the practice and completion schedule. Keeping in mind certain practices and games may have two numbers assigned because it will require two athletic trainers to safely cover the event. Each athletic trainer is assigned a number 1-4. Once this is done, the staff athletic trainers will review the schedule and confirm they have no conflicts on the events they are scheduled.

Probably the most important point to remember when scheduling the athletic training staff coverage is the athletic trainers themselves. Unlike coaching staffs that have multiple coaches to help with one team, the athletic training staff is hired and expected to cover all sports. With this in mind, it is important for a district to set work parameters and expectations for the athletic training program within the athletic department. These parameters help in the decision of an event being covered by a staff or contract athletic trainer.

As full-time employees of the school district, an athletic trainer is already committed to a 40-hour work week before the outside duties begin. Practice and competition coverage, rehabilitation, evaluation, injury prevention, injury documentation, communication with parents and coaches all usually happen after the normal work day. These are the most important individuals on the school campus for the safety of our students and athletic coaching staff. The presence of an athletic trainer will ensure the student and coaches will receive emergency onsite care at each event.

There are many moving parts to proper coverage of athletic events at the secondary level. Administrators should consider the items listed here when developing their school’s plan. The certified athletic training staff is the most important component to the safety of the school’s students and coaching staff. Acknowledging that the schedule is a very fluid document and communication of the coverage schedule to all stakeholders is vitally important.