The players go on the field in fifty minutes. The training room is full and athletes from various sports need treatment. Ms. Norma and Maria rush around the room with wrap, tape, and heat hoping to get everyone treated in time. Players who feel pain push through on the field from the help the trainers give to relieve their suffering.
Coach Ed, Ms. Norma, Ms. Maria, and Coach Aaron are the leaders and reasons why SCH athletes are prepared every single day. Without them, the athletes wouldn’t have the support they need to be able to perform the way they are supposed to and to the best of their ability.
Coach Ed, Ed Aversa, is the coach, assistant athletic director, and more. Every day he is at school trying to help SCH athletes thrive, “there’s laundry to get done. There are equipment fixes, rosters, and helping programs get together. And then we also run the day-to-day, daily operation of whatever we got going that day,” he said.
All of the things Coach Ed does are behind the scenes. These jobs are very time-consuming even when he doesn’t have a lot of time to get it done. “The hardest part of my job is when the season ends, getting a coach to clean up and figure out the season’s over and help me get everybody to turn their stuff in.” During this whole process, there is a new sport and a new season already starting.
Coach Ed loves being around SCH’s community, kids, and staff every single day: “My favorite part is just being a part of this place and knowing that every day when I go home, I’m hoping that I touch somebody in a positive way that kind of like, did I make somebody’s day a little bit better.” All he wants is to have a positive impact in SCH’s environment.
It is not just Coach Ed running the show downstairs. Ms. Norma is the head athletic trainer and also works day in and day out to prepare athletes. Ms. Norma has been at SCH for twelve years now, and she strives to make sure all athletes are healthy. She said the hardest part, of her job is that “Whenever a student or someone is injured we have to activate the EAP. It means it is a medical emergency.”
Ms. Norma and her assistant Ms. Maria, who has been at SCH for four years, both mention how sometimes there isn’t enough time to get everything done how it is supposed to be. Ms. Maria says, “At times, it does get overwhelming when there is a great deal of athletes seeking treatment. It’s frustrating because some days we cannot provide the full amount of care we would like to provide.”
Ms. Norma said, “I love watching the growth in the student-athletes. I also enjoy working with my immediate team. We are truly a family.” All of the people downstairs work together and have the same goal in mind, to help out every athlete and help them be the best they possibly can be.
Coach Aaron has been at SCH for twenty years now and is the head strength and conditioning coach and assistant football coach at SCH Academy. He has pushed for a new weight room at SCH for a while now and this past year his dream came to fruition. Coach Aaron said, “I am dedicated to enhancing the physical capabilities of our athletes while also providing valuable support as an integral part of the football coaching staff.”
All these people, Ms. Norma, Ms. Maria, Coach Ed, and Coach Aaron, who don’t get very much recognition, all have the same mindset. That mindset is to do everything they can to provide as much support to athletes as possible and help them succeed. SCH athletes are able do their jobs so well because of the people they supporting them down in that special basement.
