Jan 29, 2015
Athletic Trainers in the News
R.J. Anderson

Spending most of their time working behind the scenes, athletic trainers rarely receive the kind of recognition their work deserves. When they do make headlines, we like to spread the word with a selection of links to articles featuring athletic trainers in action.


After 30 years as an athletic trainer at the University of Hawai’i, Melody Toth, has authored a book titled, “Let’s Go Bows! Behind the Scenes with University of Hawai’i Sports.” Toth, who retired in May, started the book in 2006 using journal entries she made throughout her athletic training career.

Toth spent her first 24 years at Hawai’i working primarily with Rainbow Wahine volleyball, including the national championship teams of 1979, 1982, 1983, and 1987. She worked with men’s basketball her last six years and spent many springs with softball and other sports.

Toth describes the book as something fans “can pull out and remember, be up close and personal with their favorite athletes.” A portion of the proceeds will benefit the University of Hawai’i Athletic Training Foundation account.


Chad Wolfe, Head Athletic Trainer for the Kinston Indians, was recently voted Carolina League Trainer of the Year by team trainers from around the league. The award places Wolfe in the running for Minor League Athletic Trainer of the Year, which will be announced at the 2009 Major League Baseball winter meetings.

Wolfe is in his second year with Kinston, a Class A affiliate of the major-league Cleveland Indians and says he enjoys working with the game’s future stars.

“I spend a lot of time with players helping them get ready for games and treating them during and after games, and the next thing I see they are on ESPN,” Wolfe told The Times-News. “To have a relationship with the players, to know their family situations and to have memories of their games and then see them make it to the big leagues, that’s exciting.”


Bryan Housand just completed his eighth season in the Pittsburgh Pirates farm system and third year at Class A Lynchburg in the Carolina League. In this profile, Housand talks about having big league aspirations and the challenges of climbing the career ladder.

“It is tough,” Housand told the Wilmington Star-News. “I want to move up. I hear good things from the organization, but because I haven’t moved that means everybody above me with the Pirates are doing a good job.”


Congratulations to Tony Ortiz, who after 24 years as Head Athletic Trainer at Wright State University, has given up his team duties and taken over as the full-time director of the school’s athletic training program. In addition to teaching classes and supervising internships, Ortiz places and monitors students for their nine quarters of clinical hours at either WSU, the University of Dayton, Central State and Wittenberg, or in one of 30-some area high schools.

“I’ll still be busy, but the hours will be more set,” the 53-year-old Ortiz, a member of the Ohio Athletic Trainers Hall of Fame, told the Dayton Daily News. “Before, I might get off a bus with the basketball team at 4 or 5 a.m. and then be back to teach at 8. That took a toll, but this will give me a chance to breathe.”


Congratulations also go out to Kevin Anderson, Head Athletic Trainer for the Stockton Lightning, who was recently named arenafootball2 league Trainer of the Year. Anderson recently completed his third season with the Lightning as the team’s Head Athletic Trainer and also currently serves the same role in minor league hockey with the Stockton Thunder of the ECHL, following a six-year stint at University of the Pacific as an Assistant Athletic Trainer and instructor.


In his 23rd year as an athletic trainer at College of Sequoias, Dennis Goebel has built a top sports medicine program at the school. According to Goebel, COS was the first community college to offer an A.S. degree in Sports Medicine/Athletic Training.

The program has 22 students participating in the program this semester. According to Goebel, one in five who enter the program go on to have a career as an athletic trainer.


R.J. Anderson is an Assistant Editor at Training & Conditioning.


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