Boys’ basketball: No trainer at playoff game for hurt Fairfax player

When Donald Gipson of Fairfax went down with a knee injury in the first quarter of Tuesday’s Southern California Regional Open Division semifinal at Fairfax, there was no athletic trainer to provide help.

There are only a few schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District with athletic trainers. Fairfax isn’t one of them. But this was a state basketball playoff game. The question for the CIF commissioners who happen to be in Sacramento on Wednesday is why not devote some money from the gate receipts to pay for an athletic trainer for a state-sponsored playoff game? That’s the question I’d ask Executive Director Roger Blake after watching Tuesday’s scene under the basket.

Fairfax Athletic Director Judi Edwards, who has first-aid training, went on the court, along with Coach Harvey Kitani and several other adults. Gipson was helped to the sideline and given a bag of ice to put on his knee. He left at halftime with his parents for a hospital to be examined. There was no word late Tuesday on the severity of the injury.

But hopefully it will launch a debate about finding funding for a certified athletic trainer to be at a state playoff game.

Twitter: @LATSondheimer