My’Kaele Hookfin is part of the first senior trainer class at Memorial. She has been a student trainer since her freshman year of high school.
The Memorial Messenger talked to Hookfin about her experiences as a student trainer and her plans for after high school.
Q: What made you want to be a trainer?
A: At first I wanted to go into the medical field, and I was thinking it would give me an idea of bones and the human body. That’s the reason I originally got into training.
Q: What are some of the more common injuries you see as a trainer?
A: We see a decent amount of ankle sprains or rolls. This year we have seen an increase in knee injuries.
Q: How does the new training room help with the day-to-day stuff?
A: We have much more space and much more room to do stuff and we also have a cart.
Q: Which sport would have to be your favorite out of all the ones you do training for?
A: Out of all of them, basketball because it’s such a different type of activity because football is more stressful with a lot more people to be watching and a lot more teams. We have like four or five teams this year, and there’s 30 on each team there’s a lot of people to watch.
Q: What is it like to be a trainer at Memorial?
A: It is pretty time-consuming, literally just time-consuming. We are here before fifth and eighth periods and after school until 5:30 p.m.
Q: What are you going to miss when you graduate?
A: I’m going to miss the people.
Q: How has being a trainer improved you as a person?
A: I think I have an increased amount of empathy toward people especially people in sports. Because you never know what they are going through especially with their injuries.
Q: How does it feel being a trainer at Memorial for the first year?
A: I like it’s different than at my old school, but we’re given more opportunities. I think as our group we are more kind of united.
Q: What is the most rewarding part about being a trainer?
A: Game days. It is stressful, but it is so rewarding.
Q: What is the most stressful part of game days?
A: Game-day taping because we have to unload the bus and we have 10 minutes to do that. Then we have to go straight to taping.
Q: So what do you plan on doing after high school? Do you plan on doing something like this or do you have something else in mind?
A: As of now, I have something else in mind. I am going to go to college for computer engineering.
Q: What is something you would like to say to incoming trainers next year?
A: It is time-consuming, but if you make it work, it is so much fun.
