Black Diamond trainers observe, learn about what TCU athletic training staff does on game day

Last summer, Sallisaw High School’s four student football trainers, senior Kasey Adame, junior Addy Orendorff and freshmen Sadie Tyler and Kamryn Mayfield, got to attend Texas Christian University’s Athletic Trainers Workshop, with the their trip and costs funded by Orendorff’s parents, Dr. Chris and Dana Orendorff.

At that event, Orendorff won the ankle taping speed contest in a time of 37 seconds, while Mayfield won the T-shirt drawing contest, and her design will be used on the 2025 TCU Camp T-shirt.

TCU Associate Athletics Director of Sports Medicine David Gable said this event has gone on for nearly half a century.

“Last summer was our 47th workshop,” Gable said. “I took it over probably 15 years ago or so — I inherited it. It’s just a way to give back to the high school students. We want to keep people interested in athletic training. We want the students to have an opportunity to come into a college athletic training room, see how things work and see how we do things. We try to teach them as much as we can, so they can go back and be helpful at their local high schools.”

Then, as part of the workshop, those who attended will be invited back for a TCU home game to observe and learn what the school’s athletic training staff does on a college football game day. That chance for the Sallisaw football trainers came last Saturday when TCU entertained Oklahoma State at Amon G. Carter Stadium for a Big 12 Conference game.

“I can only take so many students to a game for obvious reasons,” Gable said. “It does give us a chance to bring them on a game day and see what actually happens on game day in the college environment. They get to do a little bit of everything. They get to do a lot of observation in the training room. They help my current students with all the set up. They get an opportunity to go down on the field and actually help hydrate our athletes prior to the game. We want them to get a feel. Honestly, what I want to do is get them excited about athletic training and becoming an athletic trainer.”

All four Sallisaw football trainers each have plans to go into the field of sports medicine in some way or another, and all four were glad for not just last summer’s opportunity by Saturday afternoon’s as well.

“I was excited,” Adame said. “This fell on my birthday. I was really looking forward to that. After I graduate high school, I want to be a PTA (physical therapy assistant), so that helped in my experience with that.”

“I was really excited for the experience in how we will do this in college,” Orendorff said. “I would like to do this in college.”

“I was really excited because I’ve grown up around football,” Tyler said. “So getting to do this has definitely been like a dream of mine since I was a little kid. I think it would be really cool if I got the chance to do this (in the future).”

Mayfield has plans to go into a different profession of the sports realm, but she believed last summer’s experience and as well as Saturday’s game-day experience will help her out in her desired path.

“I was really excited,” Mayfield said. “It was a really cool experience to be there and do all this stuff. I definitely want to keep in the sports realm of things. I want to go on and be a sports psychologist, and I think this is just really cool and interesting to learn about how this stuff works.”

Gable said seeing high schoolers get the taste of athletic training, or better yet the love for it.

“I like seeing them,” Gable said. “They’re fun to be around. I want to make them hungry and be passionate so when they become athletic trainers, and they kind of take over everything, they’re as excited about it as I am.”