Majoring in AT as a Fall Sport Athlete

Our Athletic Training major welcomes student-athletes. Students may participate in a fall sport during each of their four-years here at Messiah while majoring in Athletic Training. Because sport participation adds additional time commitment to the daily schedule regardless of the major a student chooses, it is important that student-athletes make good use of their time to allow them to be successful both in the classroom and in their athletic pursuits.

Athletic Training majors at all institutions have similar requirements with regard to classroom and clinical expectations.  Students majoring in Athletic Training invest time working with intercollegiate sport teams gaining necessary experience and practice to master skills that will enable them to graduate and transition from the role of student to employee as an athletic trainer at an educational, clinical or industrial/corporate site.

As a student-athlete interested in playing on a fall team at Messiah College you will need to budget your time wisely. If you do, you should have no trouble completing your coursework while being a part of one of our excellent intercollegiate teams. All students complete the same academic course work regardless of extracurricular interests but the five practica courses are taken along with a clinical assignment working as an athletic training student with a sport team. 

As a fall sport athlete, your five practica courses will run as follows:

As a fall sport athlete, only your sophomore and junior fall semesters will be altered. To best understand how your major and sport interact as a student-athlete click on the “Athletic Training Major”  link to the right and read the summary page which more thoroughly explains our major from freshman through senior years.  Return here after you have finished reading that introductory webpage.

No clinical requirements are required of freshmen Athletic Training majors. Beginning in the fall of your sophomore year you will acquire directed observation hours in the athletic training room. You have no specific responsibilities other than observing but you will begin to see what the staff and upper level majors do during this time.  You have 15 weeks to complete the observation requirement and all of these hours can be completed after your season is finished. During the junior fall semester your clinical responsibilities increase, requiring you to spend time completing the Practicum II clinical hour requirement and mastering the proficiencies and competencies in that course. Although you can do a good portion of this after your season is completed, you will need to spend time in the athletic training room outside of your practice time several days each week.

During your final spring semester, you will take your Clinical Practicum course working either at an industrial/corporate setting or a physical therapy clinic and then complete your Collision Sport in Athletic Training during the spring semester while assigned to our lacrosse program. Completing the Collision Sport in Athletic Training course in the spring will free you to compete during the fall of your senior year.