Jul 6, 2017Most Valuable Athletic Trainer Award
Back when Joe Cunnane, MSEd, ATC, was a high school athletic training student aide, he witnessed a football player suffer a subdural hematoma during a game. Immediately, the on-site medical personnel jumped into action, with Cunnane helping to retrieve the paramedics and deliver supplies to the athletic trainers. Yet, in the midst of the commotion to treat the athlete, one thing became perfectly clear to Cunnane: Without the athletic training staff, there is little chance that the player would have survived.
The experience had a two-fold effect on the young sports medicine protégé. Not only did it solidify Cunnane’s desire to make athletic training his career, but it also instilled in him a lasting respect for head injuries. Now, as Head Athletic Trainer and teacher at Lockport Township (Ill.) High School, he’s used the lessons learned from the incident to develop a cutting-edge sports medicine program dedicated to concussion management and injury prevention.
People don’t understand how much fun it is to work with high school athletes
