Majoring in AT as a Spring Sport Athlete

Our Athletic Training major welcomes student-athletes. Students may participate in a spring 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 hours working with intercollegiate sport teams to gain necessary experience 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 spring 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 spring sport athlete, your five practica courses will run as follows:

Spring sport athletes will concentrate Practicum hours early in the spring semester.  If you haven’t done so already, click on the “Athletic Training Major” link to the right and read the summary page which more thoroughly explains the major from freshman through senior years before returning here to read the modifications your sport experience will require as a competing athlete.

Practices begin in February and continue until the end of the semester. Your sport participation will impact Practicas I and III which you will take during the spring semester of your sophomore and junior years.  In order to complete the required directed observation hours during your sophomore year as well as the clinical hour requirements during your junior year, you will need to concentrate your time in the athletic training room during early weeks of the spring semester before practices begin. You may complete any remaining hours by working with athletes during early afternoon hours prior to the beginning of your specific sports’ practice or by working practices and competitions outside of your varsity sport commitments during evenings and/or weekends.

Your participation in a spring sport will have no bearing on your Practicum II, Collision Sport in Athletic Training or the Clinical Practicum experience as these are all taken outside of your sport season.  During the fall semester of your junior year you will work with a varsity sport on campus; during the fall semester of your senior year you will be off-campus assigned to one of the local high school or college football teams where you will work under the direct supervision of the athletic trainer at that site. The requirements of your last practica, Clinical Practicum, will be completed during January of your senior year, prior to the start of spring practices.