The WSU athletic training program, spanning over five years and including a bachelor’s and master’s degree, allows students to not only receive real-world experience but also gain a community of about 20 close friends both in and out of the classroom.

Amanda Neumann and Jazzlyn Rokosz, both graduate students in their final year of the program, have lived together for the last three years but met and became friends during their first year as athletic training students.

Neumann has participated in sports her entire life, and early on in high school, she had to see the athletic trainer for a sprained ankle, which was her first experience with the athletic trainer. As she continued doing sports, she spent a lot of time in the clinic.

“It was a fun place to be, I’m pretty sure she had snacks too,” she said.

When deciding what she wanted to do in college, she knew she wanted to work with sports, but was considering both physical therapy and athletic training, she said. Eventually, she chose athletic training.

Rokosz said she grew up with sports as well, and she wanted to continue being involved with sports without actually having to participate.

“I love helping people and figuring out how an injury occurred, and how I could help them get back into playing the sport they love,” she said.

She decided to go to WSU for its athletic training program because it is still close to her home in California, and the university combines its undergraduate and master’s programs.

The program typically starts during a student’s second semester of their sophomore year after applying in the fall, Neumann said. Once they get admitted, they are considered a pre-first year for that spring semester when they take their introductory classes and complete a rotation working with football to get an idea of what the program is like.

When they get into their first year, they do rotations with as many sports as possible during that first semester when they switch which sport they work with after a certain amount of time, which includes a full month of football, she said. In the spring, they are assigned to one sport for the whole semester.

Over the summer after their first year, students complete an immersion experience, in which they go completely off campus for a month, usually in August. Neumann said she went to University of Washington and received clinical experience without needing to stack classes on top of it.

Their second year on campus consists of off-campus rotations, including a high school, Lewis and Clark State College, University of Idaho and a physical therapy clinic to get experience settings outside of just college sports, Neumann said.

Students receive their bachelor’s degree in sports medicine after their second year, but because the athletic training program includes a master’s degree spanning over only one year, the program integrates master’s classes early, and they hold those classes for graduate credit, she said.

When they get to their third year, now in the master’s program, they interview with current athletic trainers at WSU before being assigned to one sport for the entire year. Neumann said she has been with the swim team since August; Rokosz has been with the men’s basketball team this year.

The certification exam can be taken three separate times during the spring; Neumann and Rokosz took the exam in January, and two weeks later, they received the results saying they passed and are now eligible to be certified athletic trainers once they graduate.

Neumann said she has found a sense of community within the program because of how small it is. When she joined, her class had 26 people and is now down to 19.

“You spend basically every single day with these people. It’s not just in class, but you also see them in the clinic all the time and you’re actively seeing them every single day, so you kind of have to not hate each other,” she said. “Within ourselves, we definitely have a community.”

Rokoz said the community within the program is extremely close-knit because they see everyone in their class every day, so they build a bond and create relationships with the group and can rely on and turn to each other if they need to.

“You also create relationships with the athletes and get to know them outside of them being an athlete,” she said. “You get to know other health care professionals within the whole program, whether that be physicians, PTs or other athletic trainers who are certified and take care of each sport.”

Rokosz said she still sees the people she goes to school with outside of the classroom, and enjoys being able to spend time with her peers without having to stress about on-campus priorities.

“We set that aside and actually hang out as friends who aren’t in athletic training,” she said.

Neumann said over the summer, the students go through four days of orientation and do a lot of paperwork, but they have orientation parties every night.

“We were all just hanging out, having a good time and relaxing outside of the clinic,” she said.

When Neumann graduates, she plans to move to Spokane after her lease ends in July. She hopes to work with a high school or college, and just recently had a second interview at Whitworth University.

Rokosz hopes to pursue a career in minor-league baseball or a college setting after graduating. 

Dusten Butikofer, junior nutrition and exercise physiology major, has been dating Neumann for about a year and sees the work ethic she and Rokosz have.

He spends a lot of time with Neumann despite her crazy hours, including waking up before 5 a.m. three days a week. Butikofer said he adjusts his schedule to spend time with her, but it helps him be more productive; while Neumann is in class or working with athletes, he does his homework and other tasks for school.

Being able to spend so much time with Neumann has allowed Butikofer to see how much work she and Rokosz put into the program while balancing classes, rotations and their certification exams, and maintaining a social life.

“They’re able to put in the time, even if they may not want to,” he said. “They’re able to manage all those crazy hours…and then just being able to manage time well enough that they can still go out and have a good time on top of that.”

Butikofer has interacted with a lot of Neumann and Rokosz’s friends in the program because of how close they are, and he said they know each other so well and are always interacting with each other.

Even when everyone is home, Butikofer said he has seen Neumann interact with her friends with multiplayer games like “Monopoly Go!”

“They’re just always interacting in ways that I know a lot of other majors don’t, especially on such a large scale throughout all the years, from third, second and first years,” he said.