Jacob Dimond / jake@yelmonline.com
Brittany Babkirk has been an unsung hero of Yelm High School athletics for five years.
Beginning her role as athletic trainer during the 2020-21 school year — when COVID-19 brought the world to a screeching halt — Babkirk has seen and treated just about any athletic injury one could imagine.
She can be seen on Friday nights in the fall tending to hurt Tornados football players, or on a Tuesday night in the spring watching a baseball or softball game while flanked by sports medicine students.
The truth is, her role as YHS’s athletic trainer goes way beyond what can be seen at the surface level.
“I feel like most of my job is behind the scenes,” she said. “If you go to a football game, you’ll see me handing water out or you’ll see me taping a thumb, but it’s a lot more than that. There’s concussion management. There’s injury prevention. There’s rehab going on behind the scenes — all of the paperwork I have to do behind the scenes, too. I feel like, for me, everyone sees the surface level of what athletic training is, and it’s me running onto the field to make sure someone is OK. But there’s just so much more under that going on behind the scenes that not a lot of people know. Unless you’re in the training room watching me for hours, you’re never going to see it.”
Babkirk said she originally went to college to study physical therapy, but ultimately decided to go into athletic training school. Not even halfway through her first year studying athletic training, she fell in love with the field.
“I fell in love with the fact that you get to know the athletes before, during and after an injury,” she said. “You get to know these kids, and you get to see them grow up from freshman year to senior year and that’s something amazing to witness. That helped me fall in love with athletic training. It’s more personable, and every day is different. The relationships you build with coaches, staff and student-athletes is something I’ve always wanted in my career.”
While reflecting on her five-year tenure, Babkirk said she’s felt like time has gone by quickly as a Tornado.
“I usually get here before school. That’s my time to get paperwork and evaluations done, clean the training room — everything like that,” Babkirk said. “Depending on the day, let’s say it’s the fall season, I’ll have girls volleyball, girls soccer, boys tennis, cross country and football after school. I go out to every single football practice and that takes time. Usually when the boys are in meetings, that’s when we’ll do set-up.”
Additionally, Babkirk and a team of dedicated sports medicine students take care of any extremity taping pre-practice and during practice, constantly refill and provide water to athletes during practices, provide ice and treatment post-practice. Babkirk also handled injury evaluations before, during and after practice. Her duties are expanded across 19 sports at YHS — many of which include a c-team, junior varsity and varsity.
“It’s a lot. Every day is different. I can have anywhere between one game a week to 16 games between c-team, JV and varsity. It really just depends on the day. Sometimes there’s multiple sports games a day,” Babkirk said. “Every day is different. It really just depends. I can have practice and be done at 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m., or it could be a football road game on a Friday night and I won’t be home until after midnight.”
One of the highlights of Babkirk’s job at YHS is getting to work with sports medicine students. She noted the sports medicine classes’ efforts over the last five years have been amazing.
“I work a lot with the sports-med kids. If they spend a lot of time here, I get a lot more comfortable having them in here. I’m comfortable with them taping an athlete’s ankle, wrist or finger. It helps the sports-med room move quicker and keep the chaos down to a minimum,” she said. “The sports-med kids have been helping me out since I started this job. They help me set up for games, practices and they help me clean up the training room after the day is over. Gary Clinton is great, too. If there’s an overload where I have a volleyball and soccer game, he’ll take one so I can focus on the other.”
A lot can happen in five years. Babkirk said she’s thankful for all of the relationships she’s developed over the last half decade, and that she looks forward to making many more in the near future.
“I feel like throughout my time at Yelm, I’ve built some great relationships,” she said. “I have kids who’ve already graduated but still ask me for recommendations and will give me updates on what they’re doing after college. I’ve had great relationships with the admin, and I feel like I’m part of the community. I’m a military kid, and I’ve never felt a part of a community before — until I started here.”
