Getting Into Training

Ken Yoshino can remember the bad old days.

“When I first came to the Orange County area in 1976 or ‘77, there was no immediate medical care for high school athletes,” said Yoshino, a certified athletic trainer and licensed physical therapist. “At University High School, one of the shop teachers was doing the care there.”

And thus began Yoshino’s crusade to improve health care for area high school athletes. He provides--for a small stipend--athletic trainers for Foothill, Tustin, Laguna Hills, Capistrano Valley, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Woodbridge, El Toro and Aliso Niguel high schools and Concordia University.

The program is not cost-effective, Yoshino said, but it’s mutually beneficial. Trainers who participate get good experience and athletes have certified trainers on campus during practices and games. Some who are hired at the clinic are not yet certified, but work while they are preparing to take the certification test.

“I work here at the clinic in the morning, then when the kids get out of class, about 1:45 or 2 in the afternoon, we go out to the high schools,” said Dave Ishii, 24, a certified athletic trainer and emergency medical technician. “At that point we do prevention and treat injuries. We’ll do basic triage if somebody gets hurt. Plus we attend all games.”

For being on campus five days a week, plus returning for evening and Saturday events, the trainers are paid about $2,600-$2,800 for the school year, depending on the school. The money comes out of the school district budget.

Young graduates get experience as they prepare to take the National Athletic Trainers’ Assn. certification test.

“I think it’s kind of a unique opportunity too, because we get to work in the clinic, work with the rehab of patients, and in the trainers’ room, you get to see a lot of acute injuries,” said Ishii, who graduated from Chapman. “So you get to see the beginning and end. You get to follow along the whole health care system.”

But all is not well among the care-giver ranks.

“With the change in health care, which has gone to managed care, that has tremendously negatively impacted athletic training,” said Yoshino, 47. “The mission has markedly changed from returning the athlete to activity level, but to returning them back to functional life. So an athlete is [treated] through managed care, their goal is get them just to walk. But you can’t play a game walking.

“We’ve probably lost more physicians in the last two years because they’re frustrated and depressed they cannot deliver care for the athletes.”

Dave Valentine agrees. His clinic provides athletic trainers for San Clemente and Dana Hills high schools, and some events at St. Margaret’s.

“It’s a community service,” said Valentine, 40, who has been in practice since 1983. “But it’s getting harder and harder to do because the medical field is changing. We used to be able to defray some of the cost [of sending trainers to high schools] by having the athletes come into our clinic for therapy. But because of what’s happening to insurance . . . there’s less coverage for rehabilitation and little preventive care.”

Between insurance companies and the lawyers, the business is a lot more complicated than it used to be, Yoshino said.

“Everyone is so paranoid nowadays about the liability factor,” Yoshino said. “Why would anyone want to donate their time to be on that field and get sued? It doesn’t make sense.”

Yoshino surrounds himself with people dedicated to the care of athletes, partially because they were athletes themselves. Among those who work at the clinics, Ishii wrestled at West Torrance High; Brett Eirich and Randy Bauer played football at El Modena.

“It’s not as if we’ve never participated,” Yoshino said. “We do it because we love it. I specialized in sports physical therapy because I love doing this.”

And therein lies a problem.

“The politicians are going to have to learn the safety of the athletes is as important as the education of the athletes at schools,” said Yoshino, who has a bachelor’s degree at Long Beach State. “They’ve got to loosen the purse strings a little bit more in order to attract people.

“I think the best solution is what some of the school districts are trying to do, and that’s bring in a person who can be a teacher on campus and an athletic trainer. To me, that’s the thing an athletic trainer should go into. Get certified, then become a teacher.”