Behind the scenes

Athletic training has been at Hastings High School since the 90’s.The athletic trainers help athletes by tapping ankles, wrists, and knees if they need to feel more secure, giving hurt athletes check up, and assisting them if they get hurt on the court or field. The current athletic trainer Ashley Conrad has been a full time Athletic trainer for the High School for three years.

Conrad works Monday through Friday coming in sometimes as early as 5 am. Depending on the season she also works Saturdays and Sundays.

“Normal day, come at 7 to about 8, this is my time to see any kids who have injuries, evaluate them, maybe do some treatment.” Conrad said.

Not only does Ashley work with students in the morning, she also gets a lot of her desk jobs done.

“I get some organizational things done, emails, reports, put stuff away and then I have a break during the day and I come back at 2 pm.” Conrad said.

On practice days Conrad likes to be prepared before football players get on the field. She wants things to be able to move smoothly so both Conrad and the team enjoy what they love.

“Getting people taped, getting people looked at, treatments done, all the game and practice set up. And depending on what we have going on I’m over at different places helping out the events,” Conrad said.

Being the only athletic trainer, Ashley helps out at every sport, some more than others depending on the level of danger athletes could be in.

“I work all sports. We have 16 sports offered here at Hastings High, so even though I might not be at every event I do service and evaluate kids that come from any of the sports,” Conrad said. “It’s hard being the only person in this position, so I dont have people to cover me so I’ve kinda gotta pick and choose wisely if I do want to take time off and sometimes life happens and it’s just unavoidable.”

As busy and hard as the job may get, she was drawn to it and has a great time spending time with the athletes.

“It’s a lot of work and it’s challenging and it’s not a typical desk job by any means, it’s very much you’re on the go all the time you gotta really be able to roll with anything and I like that,” Conrad said. “The best part about the job though is the kids. Like just learning about the kids and building relationships with the kids, and there are not that many jobs were you can have fun and be joking with people and learning about people’s lives. That’s what I enjoy most.”