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It’s Athletic Trainer Appreciation Month!

Written by Yezielle Orengo – Newspaper Staff Reporter

This month is Athletic Trainer Appreciation Month! We wish to congratulate our athletic trainers at Allatoona High School, Derek Sobczak and Rik Sadowski. Their jobs can be a handful at times, especially during football season, and they always have many different things to deal with. Both of our trainers are met with tricky situations with their athletes when they have injuries. They have a system where they assess the location of the injury, see if there is anything protruding or out of place inside the skin. Depending on the injury, athletes will be out for the whole season or only a week. The most common injuries that are seen in their offices are ankle sprains, which clear up quickly. Many parts go into being a physical trainer such as physical therapy, rehab, assessment, etc. But our trainers dedicate themselves to getting to know their athletes better and to treating them to the best of their ability. Mr. Sobczak says that the times they can connect with their athletes is when they are hurt. It sounds bad, but it is really the only way they can talk to their athletes. One of our trainers, Mr. Rik Sadowski, used to intern for the Denver Broncos, which is amazing! When he originally started as an Athletic trainer, his first injury he had to treat was an open fracture of the forearm, showing part of the bone, but as soon as he saw that, he knew that he was in the right place and that he could help people. Mr. Sobczak used to work in junior hockey in college, and one of the players he treated won the Stanley Cup a few years ago, which is the best you can get. Congratulations to both our trainers, Mr. Derek Sobczak and Mr. Rik Sadowski.