Dear Athletic Trainer,

Thank you for:

1. Dealing with the whining.

2. Diagnosing, assessing, and rehabbing all our injuries.

3. Putting up with all of our doctor’s visits.

4. Waking up for early morning practices.

5. Staying up for the late night games.

6. Sitting through practices in the elements; whether it’s raining, snowing, or unbearably hot, we know you still have our backs.

7. Sacrificing your time to fit our daily schedule and travel schedule.

8. Seeing the same faces in rehab everyday for four years straight and still putting in effort to help us recover.

9. Celebrating with us when we get cleared.

10. Being a therapist-physically and emotionally.

11. Dumbing down what the doctor says.

12. Being my parent away from home.

13. Your honesty when dealing with our physical limitations and flying emotions.

14. The meds.

15. Dealing with us when we are drugged and delusional after surgery.

16. Being around us after we lose.

17. Dealing with me when I ran into my best friend and we both got concussions.

18. Putting things into perspective when we are too overwhelmed to speak.

19. Dealing with our parents when we get injured.

20. Dealing with our insurance companies.

21. Being our middle man between doctors, insurance, coaches, and our parents.

22. The stretching, massaging, scraping, icing, stim, and heat packs.

23. Skipping your lunch when we walk in at noon and ask for treatment.

24. Giving us a hot minute on the field when we go down.

25. Celebrating when we get into a relationship.

26. Dealing with us when we break it off.

27. Listening to our WebMD self-diagnosis.

28. Sympathizing with our non-athletic-related health issues.

29. Properly diagnosing my teammate’s compartment syndrome and saving her leg.

30. Answering every time we call your name.

31. Going to college and getting an education so you could help people like us.

32. Calling us out when we overreact about EVERYTHING.

33. Listening to our issues with our teammates.

34. Letting me cry when I need to.

35. Telling me when it’s time to stop crying.

36. Not letting us get struck by lightning.

37. Sitting in the waiting room through the entire length of our four hour surgery.

38. Dealing with us when we say we can’t walk, but we still want to play.

39. Staying calm when our whole team walks in to the training room at once and you have 20 people all in need of your attention.

40. Bringing us ice cold water when we are training during the heat of the day.

41. Doing all of these things without half the recognition you deserve.

We are sorry that we complain too much and say thank you too little, but in the end, we know that we couldn’t do what we love without you. It takes a special person to take care of us when we are injured and you do everything you can to help us heal so we can get back to what makes us happy, and that is worthy of respect.

Thank you, for everything.

Athletes