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| LONGVIEW - As the state titel spotlight shines on Longview High School's football team this week, extracurricular activites direct Pat Collins is shedding light on a lesser known Lobo secret - athletic trainers.
Spurred by a need to cut costs, Longview's athletic department opened sports treatment clinics at two locations on the high school campus. Two licensed trainers - Deirdre Scotter and Lee Reynolds - administer cold packs, electric stimulation, rehabilitation, hot and cold bath treatments and more. Collins said it's saving the district and parents money. During the 2007-08 school year, trainers handled 5,590 treatments that would have cost either parents or the school about $125,000 in rehabilitation or insurance co-pay costs, Collins said. In the past, athletes with minor injuries were sent to local physical therapy clinics or hospitals. The district spends about $30,000 or more each year for minor treatment and rehab of students and student athletes. Longview spent between $82,000 and $87,000 each of the past two school years because of catastrophic injuries like those suffered by D'Mio Ingram, who spent about a mmonth at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas after sustaining a spinal-cord injury during spring football practice on May 8, said Eddie Milham, Longview's assistant superintendent of business and finance. "In this day and age when we have to watch every penny that comes across here, which we do," Milham said. "(LHS treatment clinics) are providing a service to us that would have cost the athletic department its budget." School athletic trainers must have a bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university and be licensed in Texas, Scotter said. Longview's two trainers also hold national certifications for sports medicine and health, which goes beyond state requirements, she said. Longview trainers have access to three electronic stimulation units, three ultrasound units, two hydroculators to heat students' sore or bruised backs, two paraffin bath units, inter-mitten compression units and more, she added. "It's a lot going on right now," said Scotter moments before taping up several Lobos before Thursday's football practice. "I always tell myself that once football is over it gets easier in the winter, but it doesn't." |