Many people operate behind the scenes to help make Reagan football happen.  Just like coaches, athletic trainers play a vital role.

This year, Reagan has five student athletic trainers in three grade levels: sophomore Michelle Salus, juniors Lorelai Gardner, Sam Dembosky, and Hannah Bryan, and senior Alyssa Taylor.

Salus is the only returning student athletic trainer for this year.  Class of 2017 graduate Emily Dickey taught Salus the procedures of being a student athletic trainer at Reagan.

“It’s an incredibly knowledgeable experience and can be the best part of high school,” Dickey said. “If you do it right, there’s a lot to be taken away from it.”

Dickey started in the summer of her sophomore year and continued on until the end of this summer.  

“Emily taught me how to look at things on the sideline through a different perspective,” Salus said.

With Salus being the only returning trainer, she has to train the four new student athletic trainers on practice and game day procedures.  

“The best thing Michelle has taught me is how to manage tough situations on the field, like when players go down on the field or become mad and need to be calmed down on the sideline,” Dembosky said.  

Student athletic trainers are required to stay after and help gather materials for football practice and game days.  They have a specific procedure to follow each day.  

“On a normal practice day we have to check in at the athletic training room to see how the waters need to be put out for each sport, then ride the Gator to distribute the water across Reagan’s campus, gather tape, the AED, first aid kit and extra water bottles to bring down to then watch football practice,” Bryan said.

Salus also has written out the procedure for practice and game days on a whiteboard in the locker room that helps the trainers keep track of what is needed to be done each day.

“Michelle has taught me that being a trainer is a lot of hard work but that it can also be a lot of fun,” Bryan said.

The opportunity to experience athletic training at Reagan as a student trainer has led Salus to think there may be a career in this field for her in the future.   

“I want to be an athletic trainer on the sideline for colleges, especially at North Carolina State University,” Salus said.  

Although these five girls are not making tackles and throwing passes on the football field, they are eligible to receive a varsity letter. Their hard work on the sidelines does not go unnoticed by the football team.  

“The trainers are essential to the team,” senior football player Brett Duffey said. “They make sure we are one-hundred percent all the time. [I] don’t know where we would be without them.”