As football starts, Tacoma Public Schools has no certified trainers to tend to injuries
Masaki Matsumoto lugs a cooler filled with bags of ice down the steep hill and onto the football field at Lincoln Bowl on the campus of Lincoln High School before practice each day. He also brings a medkit, filled with ankle tape and pre-wrap.
Among all the other things Lincoln High School’s head football coach has on his plate, he has added another title to his name as practices began in mid-August this year: trainer.
That’s the reality for not just Matsumoto but most fall sports high school coaches at Tacoma Public Schools early in the 2022-23 school year. Four of the district’s five main high schools have no qualified athletic trainers to tend to player injuries for athletics and notably, for football, which is well known as a violent sport. It has left the coaches dealing with it themselves, diagnosing injuries, taping ankles, giving players ice. It’s a position they aren’t happy to find themselves in.
“It’s very frustrating,” said Matsumoto. “I’m very concerned. Especially with games starting, it’s not a fun place for head coaches to be. They have other jobs they have to do.”
The absence of trainers raises safety concerns for parents. LaShonte Simon doesn’t have kids in high school anymore, but her three sons — Dionte, Jayden and Julien — were star football players and multi-sport athletes at Lincoln High School. Jayden currently plays football for Tulsa and Julien plays for USC. She told The News Tribune she wouldn’t be happy if she heard there weren’t athletic trainers while her sons were playing high school sports.
“I’d be like freaking out, like, ‘What are you saying to me?’” Simon said. “If someone else has to do this job, they’re not certified. They don’t know how to assess injuries, concussion protocol. That’d be extremely concerning to me, just because of their health.”
TACOMA SCHOOLS BREAK UP WITH VENDOR
For years, Tacoma Public Schools relied on Seattle Children’s Hospital for athletic training services. The most recent contract obtained by The News Tribune authorized up to $190,080 during the 2021-22 school year. Four Tacoma high schools — Foss, Lincoln, Mount Tahoma and Stadium — each had a dedicated athletic trainer from Seattle Children’s. Silas (formerly Wilson) offers a dedicated athletic training course at the school and doesn’t require a full-time athletic trainer. Prior to that, Tacoma Public Schools had a five-year contract with Seattle Children’s, which ran from 2016 to 2021.
Earlier this year, the school district changed course, and entered the contract into a request for proposal (RFP) to receive bids from other contractors for athletic training services. Seattle Children’s decided not to submit a new proposal, due to staffing and hiring constraints. In an email to The News Tribune on Thursday, a spokesperson for Seattle Children’s provided the timeline.
“This was communicated to the district Athletic Director (James Neil) in February of 2022, stating our intent to fulfill the remainder of the contract through the end of July and giving the district ample time to plan for our departure,” the spokesperson said.
The district’s RFP received only one bid, from Olympic Sports & Spine, which is affiliated with MultiCare. A spokesperson said the district is still negotiating the 2022-23 contract with the company. Until those negotiations conclude, the four high schools have no certified trainers on hand.
The 2021-22 contract with Seattle Children’s states that the district “shall have the option to extend the contract for two (2) additional one (1) year terms.” In an email to The News Tribune on Thursday, a district spokesperson wrote that the contract couldn’t be extended any further, since the district had invoked extension options twice in the past.
“Our original contract with Seattle Children’s was 3 years, and TPS invoked the option to extend the contract twice,” the statement reads.
Seattle Children’s, however, said school district representatives never discussed the possibility of a new extension.
“There was no conversation about the school district extending the contract,” the Seattle Children’s spokesperson said. “The District (athletic director) told SCH that the contract would be going through the RFP process for the 2022-23 school year.”
The current lack of certified trainers presents one problem, but another looms on the horizon: School leaders say that even when the new contract takes effect, the new vendor might not have enough available trainers to fully staff every school.
“Staffing is a challenge, contracting with Olympic Sports and Spine will help, but we recognize it still may take time to be fully staffed,” Tacoma Public Schools told The News Tribune. “That’s why we’re making arrangements to have the medical support we need for fall sports (and beyond), regardless of finalizing a contract with a new vendor.”
The district didn’t specify which arrangements are being made.
COACHES HOPE TO COPE
Lincoln will not have a trainer at its season-opening high school football game against Auburn Riverside at Lincoln Bowl on Friday night. If an injury occurs, a coach will need to step in, or request the assistance of Auburn Riverside’s athletic trainer.
“If kids need serious wrapping, has an ankle sprain, we try to do our best to tape it up,” Matsumoto said. “I’ve told them to get a brace, because we knew we wouldn’t have trainers for a while. … Really right now, if a kid is injured, we play it on the safe side. If a kid says, ‘Hey, this hurts,’ we just tell them to sit it out. Before, the trainer would do their best to get them back to training.”
Again, it’s a difficult position for coaches to be in. LaShonte Simon remembers a game in Jayden Simon’s senior year, when he suffered a concussion and collapsed on the field.
“It was great to have someone there that can do the protocol,” she said. “Looking at the pupils, asking the questions — to have someone there that could do that, that’s huge. … I feel bad for the coaches. They don’t want to be liable if something happens. Being responsible for potentially ruining a child’s future? As a parent, that’d be very concerning to me.”
