The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page F12

Insights into injuries Spalding sports-trainer camp preps teens The Courier-Journal Photos by Michael Clevenger, The Courier-Journal Sharon Serrano of the Youth Performing Arts School practices fitting shoulder pads on Jasmine Saunders of Male High. By Derek Poore Nathan Edwards of Seneca High practices taping an ankle. MORE PHOTOS An online gallery is at Jasmine Saunders, a 15-year-old from Lyndon, rattled off her injuries like a worn old athlete. She's torn the meniscus in one knee and anterior cruciate ligament in the other. She also has dislocated a hip and cracked a kneecap.

"The mother lode," said Jasmine, a rising junior tennis player at Male High School. She was one of more than 20 students from nine high schools who participated in a five-day sports medicine camp held last week at Spalding University. The camp was sponsored by the Kentucky Orthopedic Rehab Team, or KORT. The company employs athletic trainers and physical therapists. It was the first year for the camp, and organizers said they want to make it an annual event.

Since the death of Pleasure Ridge Park football player Max Gilpin, who collapsed following practice in 2008, the company has seen demand for its services rise, said Kate Korte, a KORT athletic trainer and director of the camp. It picked up an additional public schools as clients after the incident, she said. Now KORT has full-time trainers at 18 public and private schools in the Louisville area and at three colleges. The group has also seen a rise in the number of people pursuing careers in athletic training, Korte said. The participants each paid $150 to receive instruction from licensed trainers, who covered topics such as taping ankles and learning how to prevent injuries.

The participants also received PAGE 12 1 MIDDLET0WN possible to decide on the best treatment, Felix said. Felix also learned a lot of medical lingo. "Now when I hear those words on (medical) TV shows, I'll know what they mean," he said. Reporter Derek Poore can be reached at (502) 582-4286. CPR certification.

The camp featured talks and demonstrations by athletic trainers. The students learned basic anatomy and what causes common injuries. They also learned what the day-to-day routines of trainers in the sports medicine industry are like. "A lot of people don't know them from getting worse. "I like how I can help people evaluate injuries and get better," he said.

The camp "makes you think differently about your body and how it works." The camp taught students when to use hot or cold treatments on injuries and how to evaluate hurt players as soon as what athletic trainers are," Korte said. Many of the participants were student athletes. Felix Casa del Valle, 17, a rising senior at Seneca High School who was a gymnast and now is on the school's wrestling team, said he learned the importance of taping injuries to prevent NEIGHBORHOODS The Courier-Journal Wednesday, June 16, 2010.