Author: Henry Meier
Occidental College has a proud tradition of athletics that goes back to its football rivalry with Pomona dating from 1895. Its championship track program dominated the collegiate landscape in the middle of the 20th century. Even the present-day teams and athletes have helped Oxy continue to be a force to be reckoned with in a wide variety of sports, both within the SCIAC and within national competition. While the athletes that comprise these teams and the coaches that lead them take the “Tigers'” share of the recognition for Oxy’s superior athletic performance, there is a less well-known party that deserves a share of the credit: Oxy’s athletic training room.
Oxy’s training room, located on the west side of Patterson Field in the Culley Athletic Center, supports the athletes that compete for the college throughout the year. While there have been many individuals who have been apart of the training room, Head Athletic Trainer John Sweet has been in charge of keeping Oxy athletes healthy and in the game for the past 33 years.
When Sweet began at Oxy back in 1976, Oxy’s training quarters were located in a converted locker room and offices underneath the stands that used to occupy the western border of Patterson Field. “While the space may have been a little cramped, everything was in place to serve student-athletes effectively,” Sweet said. “When I began, the only sports that really utilized the training room facilities were football, men’s basketball and track and field.”
But Sweet started his time at Oxy soon after the Title IX amendment in 1972 and therefore played a role in helping women’s sports take a more prominent role on campus. This included making the training room co-ed, something that hadn’t been the case before he arrived. “It was an important step in the implementation of Title IX,” Sweet said.
Sweet would help usher in other big changes for the training room. In preparation for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, the training quarters were moved to their current location in the Culley Athletic Center. “I worked closely with the architect in designing the training room space,” Sweet said, “so I guess I have only myself to blame if I don’t like how something is set up.”
In just the past few years, the training room has undergone another interesting change. While all twenty-one varsity sports at Oxy have always enjoyed the luxury of the training quarters, club sports now also have the privilege of using the facility as well. Now instead of having to go up to Emmons Health Center or to the hospital to take care of injuries, club sport members can utilize the training room. Even after the initial injury occurs club athletes can come in and rehab their injuries.
This has increased the number of student-athletes the training room works with to about 300 every year. With only two full time trainers, Sweet and Assistant Athletic Trainer Travis Owens, the training room utilizes a core of eager and helpful student trainers to deal with the volume of athletes that use the facility. “Without the assistance of the nine student trainers we have on-staff we couldn’t deal with all the athletes that come in,” Sweet said. “It’s a great work-study experience for the students and helps us be able to keep our athletes healthy.”
The student trainers also see their time in the training room as a valuable work experience. Many of them aspire to work in the health profession and see this as a way of getting some hands on experience while getting a close up view of the sporting events. “I love working in the training room,” Audrey Akcasu (junior) said. “It’s a great opportunity to gain experience, and working with the athletes is always fun and nothing less than entertaining. I’ve gotten to know more about all the different sports and I get to watch all the games from the sidelines.”
“I was a student athletic trainer in high school, and the opportunity to be a trainer at Oxy actually really influenced my decision to come here in the first place, because sports medicine is so important to me,” Mauri Konell (first-year) explained. “I want to be a doctor, so I’m getting great experience working in the training room.”
The addition of Owens in the Fall of 2006 also has been an immense help to the training room. Having been a graduate assistant at Azusa Pacific University and then an assistant trainer at Division 1 UC Riverside, “Teo” (T.O. . . . his initials), as he is referred to around the training room, brings a high level of experience and an enthusiasm for working with college athletes. “I like working with people and being very close to the action on the court or on the field,” Owens said. “The profession requires a dedication to servant hood and I like that the most.”
In addition to his general passion to serve student athletes Owens saw the job at Oxy as possibly more rewarding than some of the other jobs he has had. “I would say that truly the best part of my job here at Occidental College is my relationship with the student-athletes,” Owens said. “Athletes at this institution are a different breed and I have enjoyed serving them and learning from many of them.”
Sweet echoed these sentiments when talking about his favorite part of the job at Oxy. “The personal relationships that you get with students are always rewarding,” Sweet said. “Working with young athletes has kept me young too.”
Sweet’s ability to stay young has also helped in keeping his training techniques and rehabilitation programs fresh as well. Reviewing the latest literature and studies on effectively treating and preventing injuries is part of the job at the Occidental training room. “Trying to keep up to date on the most recent training literature has been key in building an effective program at Oxy,” Sweet said.
“[John Sweet’s] dedication to constant improvement and literature review is the reason that we are able to provide the very best in athletic training services to our student athletes,” Owens said.
So the next time we go out to cheer one of our SCIAC championship teams or individual contenders, let’s remember all the hard work and long hours the training room staff have put in behind the scenes to keep Oxy athletes healthy and competition-ready.
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