In the William H. Bell Athletic Center, follow the stairs three stories down, walk through the double doors and turn right down the brick-lined hall. There, you’ll find Trinity’s sports medicine department, which contains the trainers, gauze, student workers and ice packs that are involved in providing medical care and support to Trinity’s collegiate athletes.
Chris Ramos, one of Trinity’s six full-time athletic trainers, helps this department run. With a master’s degree in sports management from the University of the Incarnate Word and past experience as head trainer of the sports medicine department at Schreiner University, the San Antonio native has returned to continue his career in Trinity’s facilities. Having worked at Trinity’s athletics department for five years, Ramos talked about his role as a trainer.
“For the sports athletic department in general, we’re all just a bunch of people who love being around athletics. We like being around schools. We’ve chosen this career path because we want to help athletes and people at Trinity become better people,” Ramos said. “We want to make this an environment where people feel comfortable and can come talk to us, and we can have hard conversations about injuries, about anything that’s going on.”
Whether the athletes need stretches before games, ten-minute ice baths, aid with injuries or support while recovering, the trainers are there to give it to them.
“Some of us are seeing five, six, ten athletes a day on top of practices, on top of new injuries and all that fun stuff,” Ramos said. “Working at a collegiate level, you kind of get to experience everything. I’ve been really lucky that I’ve been able to work with pretty much everything here at Trinity in my five years that I’ve been here.”
The role of the trainers is to give any sort of support to Trinity’s students and athletes that they nedd. Cameron Smith, a junior economics major and men’s soccer player, is currently recovering from a heart condition known as pericarditis, which causes inflammation in the tissue around the heart along with fluid build-up in the lungs. Diagnosed in late January, Smith has spent the past months seeking medical support from hospitals, doctors and Trinity’s trainers.
“I consider them friends. Physical side, as well as mental, I can talk to them about anything,” Smith said.
Smith talked about the current status of his heart condition. “We’re almost at the end of it now. I’ve talked to Nathan [Nutter] and Chris about it, and they’ve also set me up with a sports psychologist, and that was very helpful.”
By the end of the fall semester, Smith is hoping to start his recovery process to get back on the soccer field.
Outside of athlete care, the athletic trainers also provide jobs for student workers, looking for experience in the sports medicinal field. Angela Baltzell, senior neuroscience major softball player, is one of the student workers, hoping to have a future career as a physical therapist.
“I’m able to learn a lot from [the trainers] in regard to specific treatment styles, and how to treat different stages of an injury,” Baltzell said. “It’s gonna be helpful in my future career path as a physical therapist. Everybody’s super diverse, so you get to treat a wide variety of patients, which I think is super awesome.”
With a team of six full-time trainers, and a larger number of student workers, Trinity’s sports medicine department aids in the care of over 500 student athletes.
“They are there if you need anything ,” Smith said. “They’re really open to anyone.”
As mentioned on the sports medicine page on Trinity’s website, the team trainers have a mission to provide “high standard” medical coverage and care to Trinity’s students. All of this support is provided to you in the Bell Center — just walk three stories down.
