Cally Gault, an elder at George Wham’s childhood church, was sympathetic when the seventh grader told him that a knee injury meant he couldn’t play middle school football. As the athletics director at Presbyterian College (PC), Gault connected Wham with the newly hired PC athletic trainer, Nelson Jones. This laid the foundation for Wham’s career interest in the profession of athletic training (AT).
Fast forward nearly four decades and Wham is in his 28th year as a high school athletic trainer. At River Bluff High School, he works closely with his co-head athletic trainer, Stacey Baynham, Skylar Rodgers, Julie Sandy, TJ Marsh, and a cast of other Prisma Health health care providers and students, from high school to master’s level, who provide sports medicine services at the 465 home games River Bluff hosts each year.
A typical day for the team begins with the start of school. The flexible modular scheduling at River Bluff means that students can use their Independent Learning Time to schedule appointments with the staff athletic trainers as early as 8:40 a.m. The athletic trainers treat patients throughout the morning and then again from 2 p.m. until 4:50 p.m. In between appointments, they teach sports medicine classes.
“We have a good model at River Bluff with an AT staff consisting of a combination of school-based ATs, AT services contracted to us from Prisma, and a part-time AT. All are nationally certified and state-licensed,” Wham explained. “Our school-based ATs each teach a couple of sports medicine classes that go beyond basic anatomy to help students understand the connections between the human body and certain injuries. As athletic trainers, our role is to prevent, diagnose, treat, rehabilitate, and coordinate the next steps in terms of health care for River Bluff athletes.”
Outside the classroom, students have an opportunity to apply course concepts to the cascade of athletic training treatment by participating in the internship program. Any given afternoon, evening, or weekend, up to 28 students will show up to provide an extra set of hands and have an insider’s view of the sports medicine profession.
“While we’ve had the sports medicine student aide program for many years, this is the fourth year of the current version of the internship where students may earn academic credit for their experiences assisting the AT staff, and we are starting to see our students go on to pursue careers in sports medicine or other health care professions,” said Wham, whose 21 years as an athletic trainer at Pelion High School included the mentorship of 19 future nurses as well as many physicians, athletic trainers, physical therapists, dentists, and pharmacists.
A critical component in this pipeline is the school’s support in allowing students to gain academic credit for their sports medicine internships. Carole Farrar, a career specialist at River Bluff, helps make this happen. Seniors even have the option to take a class that provides an additional opportunity for clinical experiences off campus at sites such as Prisma Health or Lexington Medical Center.
Dr. Mickey Plymale, team physician at Prisma Health Orthopedics shared, “The Sports Medicine Program at River Bluff is one of the few in the state that is on par with most power five college programs. You will not get any better care at the college level.”
Brooks English, RBHS ‘20, said, “My time in River Bluff’s Sports Medicine Program was my first experience with athletic training and the importance of what an AT does. As a student aide, we were treated with respect and were an important part of the athletic training staff. These experiences inspired my passion for this profession and led me to pursue further education as a professional athletic training student at the University of South Carolina.”
Research, including some led by Wham himself, has demonstrated the need for athletic trainers for sports at every level. Even middle school athletics benefit from the presence of an AT. EMS vehicles and personnel were once a common sight at Friday night football games. While not always common in many places around the country, at River Bluff and the other Lexington 1 schools, AT services are being extended to these younger athletes with increasing frequency.
“A new strain on the profession is the demand for athletic trainers for non-traditional populations, such as manufacturing facilities and military settings,” Wham stated. “We rely on partners like Prisma Health, whom we’ve worked with for 15 years, to help us provide as much coverage as possible to our many athletic events.”
The process to join the program, which has grown to 28 student aids in just four years, begins after spring break. The athletic trainers interview every applicant, following up on references from teachers and coaches. The students are given a trial period to help with spring practice to determine if their interests match the program’s needs. Then the school year kicks off with orientation and the newest cohort, as well as returning students, are off and running to support the season’s myriad athletics.
In late August, River Bluff had their first JV football scrimmage of the year – playing against Spring Valley High School on a Thursday night. Five student aides were on hand to assist Julie Sandy, the AT on duty that night.
Elyse Williams, RBHS ’21, shared, “The River Bluff Sports Medicine Program offered me invaluable opportunities for hands-on learning that have given me an educational advantage during my undergraduate education. The unique experiences and amazing teachers and mentors helped build not only my educational foundation but also my confidence in knowing what path in health care I wanted to take. My time in the program sparked my initial interest in the medical field and has shaped the career choice that I am currently working toward during my final semesters at the University of Oklahoma.”
Previously open only to upperclassmen, the student program recently opened its doors to freshmen. It began when a middle school athlete suffered two significant knee injuries and needed a place to stay involved in athletics. Sound familiar?
After Wham experienced his middle school knee injury back in 1986, he spent the next two years setting up the field and helping the athletic trainers and aspiring students. Wham’s injuries healed, and he went on to play four sports in high school while also taking sports medicine classes at Presbyterian College. After graduation, he completed his degree there while gaining additional experience as a student athletic trainer.
A one-year internship at Clemson University confirmed Wham’s passion for the field, and he enrolled in USC’s Masters in Exercise Science program while serving as a graduate assistant for Gamecock Athletics. Three years later, he returned to USC to earn an EdD in Health Education Administration, graduating in 2006.
Influenced by his time in academia, Wham continues to stay involved in research, teaching (he’s been a preceptor at USC since 2007), and especially service. Though his priorities have shifted to building the student aide program and meeting the demands of the school’s athletic training needs, he continues to serve state and national athletic training and coaching organizations.
These career-long connections have led to mutually beneficial partnerships that result in better care for athletes and more promise for the future of the profession. Their partnership with Prisma Health Orthopedics, for example, means that TJ Marsh is onsite full-time. As a hospital-based outreach athletic trainer, she can expedite treatment for athletes, such as the student who broke his wrist at a morning scrimmage and was in surgery with Prisma Health by 2 p.m. that afternoon – a sequence of events that would normally take days or weeks without this type of partnership.
“Things that we used to take as a given, such as adequate sports medicine staffing and the presence of EMS at higher-risk sporting events, are now leaving a void because of the changing landscape of health care,” Wham said. “We are fortunate to have the systems and partners we have in place so that we can benefit from the contributions of our talented students while providing excellent, timely care to athletes, and mentoring the next generation of health care professionals.”