On the sidelines County high schools get free sports trainers
By Joan Tupponce CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Carrie Cheeley, a certified athletic trainer, evaluates a Matoaca football player's knee.

Student athletes weren't the only ones on the football field during practices in August. Certified athletic trainers from CJW Sports Medicine were also on hand.

This school year will mark the first year that CJW Sports Medicine is providing trainers to the county's 10 high schools during practices and sporting events.

"All of the school's have had trainers of one type or another in the past," said Ed Witthoefft, director of high schools with Chesterfield County Public Schools. "CJW has done training at four or five schools for several years, and we had teachers who were trainers. A couple of those teachers were leaving, and we wondered where we could find trainers."

When CJW Medical Center approached the county, offering to expand its services, administrators showed interest - especially when they were told it would be free of charge.

Trainers are getting more difficult to find," Witthoefft said. "It was a win/win for us."

The new services fit in nicely with the work that Dr. Katherine Dec and Dr. Doug Cutter of CJW have already been providing to some Chesterfield schools.

"Our trainers are skilled in acute injury management," Dec explained. "They can determine if an injury needs further care. They can also provide for health issues such as heat-related illness and prevention issues such as training and conditioning."

Because the county has more than 15 different sports at each high school, there may be times when trainers can't attend two events at the same time. Because of that, CJW offers 24-hour contact line - each parent of a student athlete will be given a wallet card with hotline number.

"We will have a doctor at the sidelines for home football games, and on Monday afternoons, we will do rounds at all 10 schools," Dec said. "We also have a Saturday morning clinic throughout football season where student athletes can come in and get a free assessment by a trainer."

Care will be consistent throughout the various sports.

"It's important to have continuity of care," explained Ivan Schwartz, CJW's vice president of sports medicine. "There are only

couple of hospital system sports medicine programs nationwide that do this type of care, countyor city-wide. It's a huge commitment from our standpoint. Everybody has been extremely supportive of what this means for our county."

"We understand how important it is to have prevention and early treatment of injuries, so that you can have a quick return to play," Dec added. "We love working with the high schools. The athletes are so motivated, and their families are very supportive. It's a wonderful time for us to be involved."