Help Me, Rhonda : Lowery Gains Respect of CSUN Coaches, Athletes for Her Tough Yet Caring Approach as a Trainer

Wide receiver Paul Peters and tailback Bill Harris were standing on the sidelines as their hot and sweaty Cal State Northridge teammates ended practice with a series of wind sprints. Peters was clutching an ice bag to his left shoulder and Harris had just finished icing his leg.

The injuries excused them from a final jaunt around the field--or so they thought. Trainer Rhonda Lowery had other ideas. She did not want Peters and Harris standing idly by while their teammates exerted themselves.

At Lowery’s mere hint that they could handle a light jog, they were off and running--and somewhat abashed.

“Sometimes we don’t feel like doing something we know we’re supposed to do,” Harris said.

“And she’ll make us feel bad for not doing it,” Peters added.

“She’ll give you that evil look,” Harris said.

Lowery’s look commands attention and her work garners respect. She is not only the athletic trainer for all sports at Northridge, she is virtually part of the coaching staff.

“What you try to do with people is give them their area of expertise and give them authority,” Northridge Coach Bob Burt said. “The management and treatment of injuries, that’s her job and she is good at it. I respect what she does and the way she does it.”

The respect is apparent in the confidence coaches have in Lowery’s judgment.

“On occasion we have disagreements about how badly a kid is hurt, if he’s milking an injury, but the bottom line is that when a kid goes down he yells ‘trainer,’ not ‘coach,’ ” Burt said.

Lowery, 32, one of the first woman trainers in the Southland with football responsibilities, came to Northridge eight years ago from the University of Arizona, where she earned her master’s degree in exercise science.

Fortunately, her youth and her sex were not a factor.

“When I came in it wasn’t gonna matter who I was, male or female, young or old,” Lowery said. “The program needed a boost. I’m not saying the athletic trainers before me didn’t do a good job. There was just a lot of turnover in the position. So almost anything I did impressed them.”

Rip, rip, rip, rip.

Every weekday from 1:30-2:30 p.m. the tape-ripping chorus echoes through the North Campus Stadium training room. Lowery and three student trainers set a furious pace as the room fills with football players.

At peak time, these athletes are three deep behind each training table. Most of them have their wrists and ankles taped. There also are knees, quadriceps and shoulders to bind into place.

The pace never slows. The quarterbacks-wide receivers meeting is about to convene and the kickoff return team is due on the field. Burt will not tolerate tardiness.

It is a marked contrast to the solitude of Lowery’s morning therapy sessions with post-operative or acutely injured athletes. The progress made at those sessions can make or break a player’s season.

“You end up being a psychologist a lot,” Lowery said. “Sometimes you have to be cold. If you have an athlete in here (training room) every day and the symptoms don’t change maybe you have to talk to the coach.

“The coaches know the athletes. They know his pain tolerance or if he’s unhappy in the program and he wants out. So I can use that background information. But you can’t deceive the coach or the athlete. It can be hard telling him he’s not hurt as bad as he thinks he is.”

Knowledge of the athletes’ situation is also important. It is easier to motivate a person returning to a starting position than a third stringer who probably won’t play.

“Rhonda does a real good job of knowing that this person will react this way and that person will react that way,” said Melissa Seale, a student trainer.

“She takes enough of a humanistic approach that she knows what they can do, and that is what her job comes down to--deciding when a person can play and when they can’t.”

Lowery also lends emotional support. “Sometimes you have to be a cheerleader,” she said. “On a road trip I might be the (only Northridge supporter) on the sidelines. Probably not all trainers get that involved.”

As is the case with Burt’s assistants, among Lowery’s concerns is keeping the players unified.

“I think that is my place,” she said. “The coach loses respect for you if all the athletes are on the bench with ice packs on. They see that and it brings the team down. They see it as ‘She’s got my athletes out of practice and she’s not helping me.’

“So unless there is an injury on the field we don’t treat them on the field and we don’t let them get taped on the field and no one sits around. I want it to be clear to the coach (which player) is injured and (which) is not.”

Some coaches are more involved than others.

“Coach A cares about injuries, he wants to know all about them,” Lowery said. “But Coach B, all he wants to know is ‘When can he practice?’ ”

Lowery, fourth-year assistant Bill Miller and a group of 20 student trainers treat 50 to 60 athletes per day from the 17 different Matador teams.

“There’s just not an off-season any more,” said Lowery, who relies heavily on the students.

“She is good at handing the ball over,” Seale said. “She knows someday we’ll be in her role. Each football game she puts a senior trainer in charge of the younger trainers. She doesn’t have to share. It would be real easy for her to do everything herself.”

With Miller’s help, Lowery has been able to expand the program.

For example, the men’s volleyball team underwent sport-specific visual screenings this season.

They were tested for reaction time, depth perception, one-eyed vision, peripheral vision and focusing abilities.

Lowery also gave postural screenings to the 80 members of the track and field team.

Lowery and Miller attend conferences, read journals and consult with Dr. Lester Cohn, the athletic program’s orthopedic surgeon.

Post-operative care is among the most rapidly changing areas.

“Five years ago, for knee surgery on the anterior cruciate ligament you would put the person in a long leg cast,” Lowery said. “They would not be weight bearing for six weeks and they would not exercise for six weeks after that. Now, they are weight bearing within three weeks.

“Surgeons have seen that the healing process is changing. Now they are doing so much arthroscopically and they are so much more aggressive.”

A key tool in the diagnosis of injuries is the magnetic resonance imaging test, an X-ray of soft tissue--muscles and ligaments. Lowery began using MRI three years ago.

“Every year it is used more routinely and it is more affordable,” she said. “Eventually, it will be a routine diagnostic test, like X-rays. And arthroscopic surgery will be used for diagnosis. Not just repair.”

The treatment of Jim Warren, a fullback on the football team, is a prime example of the gains in technology. Warren suffered torn ligaments in his left knee Aug. 24, underwent arthroscopic surgery two days later and was back for the game against Santa Clara on Oct. 19.

“The key was his accessibility to the treatment program,” Lowery said. “At a smaller college or in a high school situation he wouldn’t have that daily care.”

Despite the modern miracles of arthroscopic surgery, Warren’s ligament had not completely healed when he gained 20 yards on his first run from scrimmage in a Northridge uniform.

“He’s strong enough and skilled enough that he can get by with it,” Lowery said. “He is using his muscle strength and his knee brace.”

As part of the end of season report for the football team, Lowery will recommend strengthening exercises for Warren throughout the off-season. She also will list the most common injury suffered by the Matadors and in which game they incurred the most injuries.

The joy of her job is seeing a player like Warren return to action. “That made my week,” she said, “but he did all the work.”