The Most Merciful Medical Attendant: Athletic Training

1
The Most Merciful Medical Attendant Athletic
Trainings College Football Roots and
Implications for Athletic Training
Education Jennifer Lee Hoffman, PhC, ATC, LMP,
University of Washington
University of Washington, 1893

• Socialization
• Students gradually learn the diverse criteria for
  a successful career through transmission of
  meaning.
• Occurs in formal education, daily routines and
  informal annotations of everyday experience
  called common sense.
• Includes stories told within the community about
  important people and events (Traweek, 1988).
• Communication, interpersonal relationships, and
  teaching behaviors pass on the values of the
  profession (Emery, 1984).

Athletic Training The Collegiate Ideal
The Earliest ATCs Students? In the earliest
editions of the University of Washington student
yearbook there are references to a student
helper, The Most Merciful Medical Attendant,
listed among the players names on the football
roster. These yearbooks published just after 1900
did not elaborate on the duties, but the name
clearly implies that this student provided
medical attention with compassion.
The Rise of Athletic Training College football
remained independent of the academic management
of the institution. This left the early
development of the athletic training profession
highly influenced by the culture of college
football. As football continued to grow, the
athletic training profession grew too - often in
the shadows of college football and the
increasingly research oriented medical profession.

• ATS Education Today
• Create student-centered experiences that maintain
  the values customs from the collegiate ideal
  and apprenticeship model that distinguish the ATC
  from nurses, physical therapists, physician
  assistants.
• Purposeful Communication with ACIs
• Academic Counseling
• Research Oriented Clinical Experiences
• Campus Diversity Initiatives

Student Athletes Self-Development
The Rise of College Football College football
grew out of a student-alumni management system
that developed during a time of faculty
disinterest in the extra-curriculum (Rudolf
1990). This early, independent management of
football was followed by development of the
collegiate ideal.

• The Collegiate Ideal
• Intercollegiate competition is about the
  self-development of those competing.
• Athletics provides a surrogate for the
  small-scale student experience idealized among
  those not competing.
• Even though football is highly professionalized,
  it still strongly communicates the collegiate
  ideal to the popular culture.
• 
  (Toma, 2003)

From Stadia to Academia The Influence of
College Football Approved Clinical Instructors
(ACIs) will play an increasingly important role
in the in the socialization of athletic training
students. However, many of todays certified
athletic trainers were socialized in
certification educational settings dominated by
college football.
From Athletics To Academics

• References
• Emery, M. J. (1984). Effectiveness of the
  clinical instructor students' perspective.
  Physical Therapy, 64, 1079-83.
• Rudolf, F. (1990). The Rise of Football. The
  American College and University A History.
  Athens, GA The University of Georgia Press.
• Toma, J.D. (2003). Football U. Spectator Sports
  in the Life of the American University. Ann
  Arbor, MI The University of Michigan Press.
• Traweek, S. (1988). Beamtimes and Lifetimes The
  World of High Energy Physicists. Cambridge
  Harvard University Press.
• For more information contact Jennifer Hoffman
  jennilee_at_u.washington.edu

• Be attentive to our professions college football
  roots.

• Remain connected with the collegiate ideal focus
  on self-development of the physically active
  participant.
• Strongly associate with academic components of
  the collegiate ideal.

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