Athletic Trainers Are The UCF Frontliners

Television viewers tuned to national news outlets a few months back would have been hard-pressed to miss the stories of doctors, nurses and other medical personnel working in New York-area hospitals bulging with COVID-19 patients. Those individuals regularly risked their lives in situations where personal protective equipment was at a premium.
 
The athletics bubble within the UCF campus may currently be a comparatively bucolic setting 1,000 miles to the south.
 
Yet UCF director of sports medicine Mary Vander Heiden is just as impressed with her own staff of front-line personnel dealing with the daily realities of the coronavirus.
 
They've been dealing with COVID in some form since March when all of college athletics shut down.
 
Since June 1 when 60 UCF football student-athletes initially returned to campus for voluntary workouts, Vander Heiden and her staff of 14 (including one graduate assistant and one intern) have spent significant portions of their days handling issues related to the virus, including pulling staffers who normally cover other sports to help with football:
 
--They transport anyone needing repeat COVID testing to and from downtown Orlando Health facilities. Orlando Health brought its mobile testing facilities to campus for the large-wave initial testing sessions.
 
--They have been present (along with representatives of Kurt Schmidt's strength and conditioning staff) for all the smaller-group workouts in the weight room and during morning running sessions for players.
 
--Athletic trainers and physical therapists on staff have continued to handle—wearing N95 masks when appropriate and washing their hands constantly, though often unable to social distance given the nature of their work--the long-term rehabilitation efforts (by appointment only) of 15 UCF athletes who never left campus after the virus sent most students home.
 
"That group of student-athletes represents the pros because they've been doing this since March," says Vander Heiden.
 
--Athletic trainers handle temperature checks and other routine health questions (and record and process all that information) for every visitor to the UCF athletic training room and for each student-athlete prior to every workout.
 
--They staff the lobby of Roth Tower (the entrance to the Spectrum Stadium press box) Monday through Friday for those same daily checks for UCF athletics administrators working there.
 
--They take care of daily cleaning of any equipment used in rehabilitation and the athletic training room in general.
 
--They also deal with any of the normal bumps and bruises (and all sorts of other ailments) that come about routinely, often setting up mobile tele-health appointments.
 
--Vander Heiden is personally part of Monday-through-Friday virtual football team meetings, providing medical guidance and updates.
 
"Every team meeting Coach (Josh) Heupel has us go over protocols. Ongoing education is key," she says.
 
Over a normal June and July, those same football student-athletes would be working out on their own in comparative anonymity, with no media attention and with most of the rest of the athletic world trying to plan vacations. Instead, the virus has thrust college football, in particular, front and center into the media consciousness. 
 
For Vander Heiden and her staff, that sort of life with the virus has become the new normal.
 
"Everyone plays a role," says Vander Heiden. "We have an internal policies and procedures committee that since March has been tackling the specifics of our protocols for how we do things."
 
Locker rooms remain closed. Masks are routine in the athletic training areas--and there is hand sanitizer everywhere. Each athletic training staff member has been retested for the virus each time another wave of student-athletes comes to campus.
 
"The minute somebody walks into the training room, we ask them to wash their hands for 20 seconds," says Vander Heiden. "Sometimes I feel like that's all we do all day—wash our hands."
 
Vander Heiden is UCF's representative on the American Athletic Conference medical task force. She has at least one COVID Zoom call a day (two calls twice per week), not to mention touching base regularly with other colleagues around the nation. She routinely shares that intelligence with her entire staff.
 
"It's a lot of dialogue," she says. "As best practices change, as this virus is ever fluid and ever changing, you build a policy one day and it's obsolete the next week, sometimes the next day. The constant collaboration has been the most important thing within the staff."
 
Vander Heiden likes the way the UCF student-athletes have handled this unique situation.
 
"Each time there's a learning curve, with each wave of athletes we bring in. I'm not sure anyone really enjoys wearing a mask--it's just a totally different culture that takes some time to change," she says.
 
"I think our student-athletes have gradually accepted (conditions dictated by the virus) as part of life these days.
 
"Some take it more seriously than others—yet everyone is getting used to working in their small (workout) groups and getting their business done every day."
 
As complicated as the spring and summer have been, Vander Heiden is thankful for those with whom she works shoulder to shoulder.
 
"Members of my staff have been the real heroes through all of this—their resilience when it comes to change, to operating differently," she says.
 
"It's hard with all the things we have to do. So it's about their teamwork, their willingness to help each other out and have each other's backs. It's been really, really rewarding from my seat, just to watch that.
 
"We still like each other at the end of the day. So, if you can maintain a relationship through all these COVID details, that's a really strong relationship.
 
"I can't imagine doing this with any other staff."