The SLU AT Program Kicks Off the Third Year of the Roosevelt HS AT Club

2016-17 Roosevelt High School Athletic Training Club
By: Amelia Meigs (SLU MAT Class of 2017)

We had the first meeting of the 2016-2017 Roosevelt High School Athletic Training Club just two weeks ago. 

This is the third year of the RHS AT Club, which has been funded by an Ethnic Diversity Enhancement Grant from the National Athletic Trainers' Association Ethnic Diversity Advisory Committee.  A new development this year is that RHS now has an Athletic Trainer, Kemba Noel-London MAT, ATC (SLU MAT Class of 2012), who is pursuing a PhD in Health Management and Policy with an assistantship sponsored by the Doisy College of Health Sciences.

We met at Roosevelt with a group of about 15 students, and first introduced Saint Louis University Kemba, Dr. Breitbach and our mentors (Morgan Jasperson, Amelia Meigs, Brandi Burgett). First, I presented about what an athletic trainer is, what could make a person a good fit for an athletic training career, and how to become an athletic trainer.

Then we discussed what matters to the RHS students—a large focus of our club this year. We are aiming to meet the students where they are to provide them with the tools for a successful career in sports medicine based on their interests. We want to allow them to develop professionalism before entering a program, and allow them to understand the process of becoming an athletic trainer.

Then we got on to the real fun—teaching the students how to tape an ankle! All the Roosevelt High School students were excited to learn this new skill. Some of the students have been in our club all 3 years, and those students were able to assist their classmates in taping. I’m always surprised and amazed at the quality of the tape jobs by these first-time tapers—many of them are athletes and have an intuitive understanding of athletic training, even though this is the first year Roosevelt High School has an athletic trainer. 

Still to come this semester is a meeting with a Dietitian from Saint Louis University, a SLU basketball game, and much more!