‘Trusting my gut:’ Hughes replaces mother as Rochester athletic trainer

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Catherine Hughes

It is the same last name but a new face as the certified athletic trainer at Rochester High School.

Catherine Hughes has replaced her mother Christina as the new trainer. She said she was hired in mid-to-late December and started her new duties Jan. 5.

Christina Hughes worked 22 years as the trainer before leaving last August and taking a job at Ancilla College at Marian University.

Catherine Hughes is a 2019 Rochester grad who played basketball for four years and softball for a year. She was also a football team manager for four years as well as being a boys basketball and baseball team manager.

She has a bachelor’s degree in exercise science from Franklin College and a master’s degree in athletic training from Manchester University.

She received her certification from the Board of Certification for Athletic Training and her license from the state. Every two years, she will have to take continuing education courses.

Catherine’s employer is Woodlawn Hospital, but she said she will spend “95 percent” of her time at the high school.

“It’s big shoes to fill,” Catherine said of replacing Christina. “But she did a good job setting everything up and having all the systems in place that has helped me coming right out of school. It would have helped anybody. So I don’t have to come up with that necessarily on my own, and that’s like one less thing being a new grad I have to worry about. She’s a good resource too that I still have that I can ask her about if there’s a situation. Or I’m like, ‘How did you do this?’ And I can kind of base off what she did, and if I think there is something that could be changed just a little bit.”

Asked what the best advice she received from her mother was, Christina said “trusting my gut.”

“If I’m worried about something or not sure and I lay something out, you just have to trust yourself,” Catherine said. “And making connections too. Making sure that I’m talking to the coaches. Yes, a lot of them I feel like do know me from over my time here – basically, my whole life. But building that, I guess, adult connection with them rather than me just being a student. And if I make those connections, it will make things a lot easier and make things run a lot smoother.”

Catherine said that she wanted to be a physician’s assistant when she started her undergrad studies at Franklin. She said she wanted to be a surgical-first assistant.

“But with that degree, that’s about all you can do,” Catherine soon discovered.

But working as a football team manager at Franklin, she liked being on the sidelines and gradually gravitated away from being a physician’s assistant to athletic training.

Due to the courses that she had taken on her physician’s assistant path, she had already taken many of the prerequisite courses to become an athletic trainer.

“I loved being around the Franklin football team and all of the coaches,” Catherine said. “I spent most of my time there. Half of my college friends were football players because that’s all I ever saw.”

Asked what her most satisfying experience she has had as a trainer, Catherine spoke of the connections she has made with student-athletes.

“I got to though all of my clinicals, there’s been some athletes that I have worked with more closely than others, and watching those ones that I was able to build a relationship and earn their trust and watching them go from they aren’t participating to watching them go back to 100 percent back out to playing a sport they love,” Catherine said.

Working at a smaller school helps build those relationships. A football player whom she has treated is somebody she might see again in basketball, or a volleyball player might be in the trainer’s room for softball.

“So you’re not just another athlete,” Catherine said. “You’re not just another ankle sprain. That can help in so many different ways because it helps them to feel seen and heard and essentially help them get better faster.”

Dealing with younger athletes, Catherine might meet student-athletes that have never had a significant injury before meeting her.

“With those first-timers or the more worried ones, they do tend to need a little bit more, and I find that helping them understand what their injury is and how it happened and what the plan is and coming up with a plan and keeping them involved in their treatment eases those worries,” Catherine said. “Making sure that you give them the chance to ask questions and making sure they understand what you’re telling them. Because there are times where you’re talking about an injury, and the kid’s like, ‘I have no idea what that is.’ If you’re talking about a specific muscle or mechanism of injury, helping them understand what’s happening and what I’m thinking and treatment plan-wise and keeping them involved helps with that worry and helps them feel reassured.”

As for concussions, they remain a big concern for teenage athletes. Catherine said she will try to talk to an athlete whom she suspects might have suffered a head injury. She said that sometimes an athlete that might appear “back to normal” right after such an injury is not actually the case.

Catherine was asked what advice she would give to a young person who would like to become a certified athletic trainer.

“Do it and trust yourself,” Catherine said. “My confidence, I’ve seen it grow. If you looked at me when I first started versus now, I can see it, and it’s kind of crazy. If you go in there with that confidence, it will help you so much with the whole process. Doubting yourself won’t help you. It’s OK. You’re not going to be perfect from the beginning. I grew up in here, and I was one of the few people that taped one or less ankles in my entire life. Everybody knew how to do it, but I had never really done it, but now I can tape an ankle with them.

“Confidence is the biggest thing. If you want to do it, go do it.”