Athletic Training Matters

[embed]Video Interview with Dominique Day, a UT Athletic Training student, discusses the program, and how the Commission on Accreditation for Athletic Training Education has changed its future.

The University of Tampa offers a variety of programs that concentrate on sports, and one that stands out is the Atheltic Training major. The program educates on how to gain the skills to provide examination, treatment, and rehabilitation for injured athletes. UT facilities provide an athletic training room and clinic at Bob Martinez, the main athletic center on campus. The athletic training room is a space where students can gain medical experience while attending and bonding with UT’s Spartans athletes. Currently, UT offers twenty-one men’s and women’s varsity sports which compete at the NCAA Division II level.

At the clinic, one of the main Assistant Athletic Trainers is Andrew Keane. He examines his career closely and the wounds that come with it. Keane started working at UT in August 2021, looking to fulfill his high school dreams. “It was something I saw around me,” Keane said, “I enjoyed the aspects of it that it had, being involved in sports and helping people.”

With his passion in mind, he studied Athletic Training and obtained his degree from James Madison University in Virginia. Later, Keane moved to Tampa to start his career and has been established there for eleven years.

Keane explained that his daily work tasks change depending on which team he works with, but mainly he works closely with the soccer and softball teams. In the mornings, he focuses on performing rehab and injury evaluations with the student-athletes at the clinic. While in the afternoons, he will be out on the field with the teams during their practices or official games, and prepared for medical assistance.

Throughout most of his experience, Keane has mostly worked with treating knee injuries. He expressed that it takes a lot of diligence and consistency to perform this type of long-period rehab, but it’s a process that brings an opportunity to get familiar with the person. “ACL, anterior cruciate ligament, can be some of the best injuries to work with,” Kein said, “it requires a lot more but I think in terms of what you get out of it there are a lot of good things that happen.”

Despise working only for a year at the campus, Keane has made great connections with the department and made great memories at the clinic. “My favorite thing about working here at UT is working with young athletes and young Athletic Training students,” Keane stated, “It is kind of a breath of fresh air to work with people who are still coming into their own and figuring out better ways to do things.”

Keane expressed his devotion to the career, and how he has spent his time empowering and educating; “I hope I can just keep helping people at whichever level I am working at as long as the people around me are good and focused on kind of being their best self on and out of the field, I am going to be pretty happy.”