Free athletic physicals and highly involved coach education programs helped land five Adams 12 Five Star high schools national recognition for their ultra-safe sporting environments and eagle-eye care over student athletes.
Thornton, Northglenn, Horizon, Legacy and Mountain Range high schools were all given the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Safe Sports School award earlier this month thanks to the Children’s Hospital Colorado.
It was a do-or-die funding scenario that took Adams 12 from almost having no athletic trainers to having the very best health support system for students in the state in just four years.
“The school district was cutting back funding and they were at risk of losing their athletic training budget, so they reached out to us to see if we could partner with them,” said Bridget Younger, director of the Sports Medicine Program at Children’s Hospital Colorado.
The Safe Sports award has never been given to a Colorado school before — let alone an entire district in one fell swoop.
Ed Hartnett, athletic director of Adams 12 Five Star Schools, said it was a unique combination of intensive programs and professional training that provided such complete injury prevention treatment of the athletes.
Among those programs are coaching clinics and free athletic physicals that several district families attend every May.
“It’s not just a physical that a kid can get at a local pharmacist,” Hartnett said. “We actually do EKGs and have cardiologists on hand. Every year, we find a number of kids who actually have heart issues and didn’t know it.”
Identifying preexisting health conditions and working with the athletes to seek a specialist through Children Hospital Colorado is another part of the stellar program, Younger said.
In the program, each high school is assigned an athletic trainer and a physician who are almost always present at practices and games.
“It’s been a really great opportunity for the athletic trainers who are now employed by Children’s,” Younger said. “It helps to connect the district to all of our (hospital) resources.”
Megan Mitchell: 303-954-2650, or mmitchell@denverpost.com
