A world of hurt: an NFL athletic trainer plays multiple roles—treater, healer, confidant, reader of the team pulse—and walks an uneasy line, especially on a trip to the principal's office

Sporting News, The, Nov 19, 2001 by Paul Attner

It is Monday morning in the training room of the New Orleans Saints, and Scottie Patton is fretting--and sweating. Seventy minutes earlier, Patton, the Saints' head athletic trainer, sent quarterback Aaron Brooks to the team doctor for X-rays of a sprained foot. An intern drove Brooks, and Patton is concerned that neither has checked in.

"Man, I don't fed like taking a bullet for this," says Patton.

It is 11:40, 20 minutes before a mandatory team meeting. The night before, the Saints lost to the Jets in the Superdome and tackle Kyle Turley was tossed for unsportsmanlike conduct near the end of the game, a penalty that cost his team any remaining chance of winning. Coach Jim Haslett is hardly in a jolly mood; it is not an auspicious time for his starting quarterback to be tardy.

"Jim made it plain when I was hired," says Patton, now in his second year with the Saints, "that the training room is no excuse for being late for a meeting." Patton had hesitated about sending Brooks to the doctor, knowing the time frame. As the intern, Ronald Toval, was leaving, Patton told him, "Whatever you do, get him back by noon"

Patton calls the doctor's office. The receptionist hasn't seen Brooks leave. The office is a 10-minute drive from the team complex. Patton is increasingly anxious.

"Scottie, why did you do this? You knew it would be cutting it close," he says out loud. "God dog it."

The phone rings. It is the receptionist. She says that Brooks and Toval had left minutes earlier through a back door. "Now my heartbeat will slow down," says Patton.

At 11:55, Toval walks in. "Thanks for getting him here on time," says Patton. Toval smiles.

Patton smiles, too. On a morning when nothing has gone as he had planned, at least one crisis has been averted.

Patton's world is part of a hidden NFL in which few outsiders are allowed entrance, not even the media. This is a world where players traditionally have retreated not only for treatment and rehabilitation, but also to socialize. Its daily activities are clouded in secrecy, in great part because acknowledgment of injuries is treated so gingerly among teams. How much information should be disclosed? How quickly? How specifically? The league even requires clubs to issue weekly injury reports, trying to inject honesty into an area where the injury status of players can influence opponents' game plans and, yes, betting lines.

"The two most important areas within your facility are the locker room and the training room," says Randy Mueller, the Saints' general manager. "You have to control the atmosphere in both. If you aren't careful, they both can become a duck pond, where the players can retreat and start quacking. We wanted a positive place, not a duck pond."

Trainers walk an uneasy line, caught between players who can look upon them as confidants and coaches who want them to not only read the pulse of the team, but also serve as some sort of miracle healers, able to speed the return of the hobbled.

At the same time, the role of team athletic trainer never has been more important, or more complex. The death of Vikings lineman Korey Stringer this summer, and the resulting questions about heat exhaustion, appropriate practice conditions and sufficient fluid intake, put the spotlight squarely on this aspect of NFL life. Trainers have responsibility, either directly or as advisers/monitors, in all three of these areas.

"We've come a long way since the days when the image of a trainer was tape, a bucket of ice and towels," says Patton, 32, who is the youngest head athletic trainer in the league. He also has a bachelor's and a master's degree in sports medicine, and is certified after passing rigorous exams.

Now trainers not only treat injuries, but they also determine and guide the rehabilitation process, act as liaisons between franchises and the NFL regarding injury reports and drug monitoring, coordinate the functions of the team doctors, educate players in areas such as appropriate supplement usage, and keep records that are used in injury grievance and insurance proceedings.

On Mondays following games, these multiple trainer tasks usually converge to create a hectic, tense environment that can vary from humorous to frustrating to invigorating--all within a matter of minutes. Before this Monday ends, Patton will experience most of these emotions.

It is 10 a.m., 20 minutes after Patton entered the Saints' practice facility. He is in the midst of doing essential postgame paperwork when center Jerry Fontenot walks into the training room. Fontenot's neck hurts. Patton is the only trainer on duty. He gets up from his desk and begins treating Fontenot.

"I'm in trouble," Patton says, half-jokingly.

This is his worst fear. Since last night, when Haslett changed the Monday schedule and called a mandatory team meeting for noon followed by film study until 2:30, Patton knew his morning could become a mess. Under the old schedule, players didn't have to report for treatment until 1 p.m., a major switch from the usual 6:30 a.m. time. So Patton had given his two assistants and two intern trainers a break; they didn't have to show up until 11 a.m. Even with the unexpected meeting, he was hoping players would sleep in. But Fontenot's presence erases that wish.