Pre-Season Meetings: Meaningful or Meaningless?
August on campuses is a compressed flurry of activities to begin a new academic and athletic year. Embedded in the process, to name a few, are meetings with a plethora of objectives, team rules, compliance, medical intake, parking process, locker area protocol, weight room intake, nutrition station options, etc.
Courageously defend your position
Questions abound for those willing to examine the traditional process. In these campus meetings,
What is accomplished?
How is it measured?
Does retention matter or are schools just meeting compliance requirements?
Furthermore, what content is deemed a priority?
What information is left to the student-athlete to ‘pick up’ experientially when they arrive at the Training Room doorway?
Orientation or Onboarding
I am exploring whether the process can be improved or is this a process mired in traditional, entrenched expectations from administrators, coaches and the student athlete.
Let’s look at the process and assign a name of Orientation versus Onboarding.
Orientation can be as simple as sending an introductory e-mail before the first day or scheduling team sessions during the first week. The primary goal is to familiarize new student-athletes with the Athletic Department and teams’ immediate expectations and help them navigate their new environment.
Onboarding is the more comprehensive and long-term process that extends beyond the initial orientation activities. It’s designed to integrate the student athlete into the team culture, help them understand the personnel they will encounter in healthcare, their roles and responsibilities, and facilitate the successful transition into the athletic healthcare environment
Your university’s commitment to the Onboarding process will speak volumes about your organization’s value of the student-athlete experience.
Let’s examine one specific area of athletics, the Training Room, where healthcare is provided.
Each student athlete comes to you with a baseline of knowledge and experience with the sports healthcare process. Most incoming student athletes have not had a relationship with an athletic trainer like they will at your university. Most student athletes will encounter their first healthcare visit without their parents alongside.
Assumption that the student-athlete understands the role of the athletic trainer, services, opportunities, and protocols of the college sports healthcare process is a fundamental oversight
1441 institutions offer some roster of team sports which accounts for an estimated (x10) 14,410 meetings.
I believe athletic departments can do better at onboarding the students to the environment. Contact Ralph Reiff at ralph.reiff@icloud.com if you are interested in my solution.
