R.J. Marse
LSU Sports Information
Have you ever dreamed of being an LSU football player? What’s the dream like?
Are you scoring a touchdown in front of 92,000 adoring fans?
Are you making a crucial tackle on a third down that forces a punt, inciting a round of praising bows from your fellow students?
Or, are you that rarest form of fan who avoids the spotlight and wishes only to be a consistent offensive lineman, keeping their players away from our players as much as you can?
Whatever the dream may be, it definitely isn’t sitting on the sidelines with an injury, watching your teammates on the field as they fight for a victory.
Actual players are no different. They want to be on the field on Saturday nights, fighting for conference wins and national championships.
It’s the job of Athletic Training to make sure that’s not only possible, but also the right decision for the athletes involved. From taping ankles to dental appointments, LSU athletic trainers offer the players all the care they need on and off the field of play.
“We offer all-encompassing care,” says Senior Associate Athletic Trainer Andy Barker. “We deal with everything from mental health to dental care to eyes to anything you can think of.”
Barker and the athletic training staff consider themselves the “first line of defense” when it comes to healthcare. It’s no surprise, however, that the training staff gets help from many sources in a community full of LSU fans all pulling for the Tigers to bring home a championship.
“We’ve had really good support medically within the Baton Rouge community. We have specialists all over the place that will help us out,” says Barker.
The training staff for football starts at the top with LSU Director of Sports Medicine Jack Marucci then down to Barker and his fellow Senior Associate Shelly Mullenix. Two graduate assistants are assigned to football along with nine student assistants.
Game Week
During the week, the training staff is responsible for various phases of athlete care. Apart from the normal injury care, the graduate assistants, Ashley Anderson and Chris Cosce, serve as planners and organizers for both the players and the student workers.
“We plan where our students will be for the games and practice and what their jobs will be for the week,” says Cosce. “…We also make any appointments during the week for the athletes and progress from there with injuries.”
From Monday-Thursday, the schedule remains roughly the same for the trainers: preparation for practice, watching out for injuries during practice, and recuperation after practice.
“You have to treat every injury as if it’s major because it could be affecting the player in ways you don’t even know. It could be an ankle sprain, but the ankle sprain might be the most traumatic injury he’s ever had,” says Anderson.
Every night a team doctor comes to the facility to provide any further treatment or diagnosis for any injured players. The doctors also write players prescriptions that can be filled in the pharmacy, conveniently located inside Tiger Stadium in the Broussard Athletic Training Facility.
For home games, the trainers will set up a treatment room in the Lod Cook Alumni Center hotel on campus on Friday.
“We have treatment sessions in the hotel after dinner and after the team sees their movie on Friday night,” says Anderson.
“On Saturdays we’re available all day. We come in at 10 a.m. just in case any of the players need anything for pre-game jitters or anything they need to calm them down,” says Anderson.
“We get worn out during the week and we’re ready to just say ?Oh my god, I’m done!’” says Cosce. “But right when you’re done that’s when the actual fun starts.”
During games, the staff all has one hope ? to not have to work. It’s odd to hear from such a hard-working group.
“The best games are the ones when I don’t find myself on the field,” says Barker, “I love to just watch and know that all of our players are ok.”
While their hopes may never come to fruition, the entire staff all has a job to do.
“I watch the game, but in a different way,” says Barker, “I’m watching behind the play to make sure everyone gets up off the ground.”
During the game, Cosce works the defensive side of the field while Anderson works the offensive side. Everyone on the staff is helping out to make sure players are receiving the treatment they need on and off the field, be it re-taping ankles or helping to carry injured players off the field.
“Halftime is madness,” says Anderson. “For 20 minutes you’re everywhere, doing everything you can to help. You don’t even look up.”
“That’s one thing we love about the job — we’re never bored. There’s always something to do.”
“All week you’re just going and going and then Saturday comes around and that’s when it’s worth every minute. It’s incredible,” says Anderson.
Sunday it all starts again ? assessing injuries, treating the athletes and organizing the staff.
The Staff
The training staff ranges wide in age and experience. Just in football, there are nine undergraduate students each pursuing degrees along with two graduate assistants in the midst of earning their master’s degrees. All are overseen by three Athletic Trainers ? two Senior Associates and one Director of Sports Medicine ? who have completed the same undergraduate and graduate degrees that the students now pursue. LSU’s staff, however, is bonded by more than just common experience.
Anderson and Cosce are both graduates of the athletic training program at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Fla. They’re not the only ones, either. Marucci, Mullenix and Barker also came to LSU from Florida State over ten years ago.
“We get a lot of flack for it around here,” says Anderson, “But we produce awesome people so what can we say?”
Don’t question their loyalty though ? both Anderson and Cosce say that the win over Florida was the greatest game they had ever seen and could not have been happier with the result.
“There is nothing like an SEC football game,” says Anderson, “Both Chris and I look at each other during games and think we would have never had anything like this at Florida State.”
Working with the team to help them win every week makes the trainers feel like a part of the experience, and they are. It’s no wonder they sometimes get as frustrated as the fans do when the team makes mistakes, no matter how rare they’ve come this season.
“You get emotional,” says Anderson, “You feel like you’re there, too. Sometimes if they drop a pass you’re like ?Come on! You catch that ball every day in practice!’”