West Ouachita earns Safe Sports School Award from National Athletic Trainer’s Association

Posted Date: 10/13/2023

West Ouachita High School was recently awarded the Safe Sports School Award by the National Athletic Trainer’s Association for its efforts in keeping their athletes free from injuries.

Head athletic trainer Jansen May submitted the application that had to check all the boxes in order to receive the award.

Those boxes included:

• Creating a positive athletic health care administrative system
• Providing or coordinating pre-participation physical examinations
• Promoting safe and appropriate practice and competition facilities
• Planning for selection, fit function and proper maintenance of athletic equipment
• Providing a permanent, appropriately equipped area to evaluate and treat injured athletes
• Developing injury and illness prevention strategies, including protocols for environmental conditions
• Providing or facilitating injury intervention
• Creating and rehearsing venue-specific Emergency Action Plan
• Providing or facilitating psycho-social consultation and nutritional counseling/education
• Being sure athletes and parents are educated of the potential benefits and risks in sports, as well as their responsibilities

The application for a Safe Sports School Award outlines the specific actions that will lead an Athletics Program to the highest safety standards for its athletes.

This is the second recognition West Ouachita High School has received for its exemplary athletic training efforts this year. May was also named the Gordon Reynolds Secondary School Athletic Trainer of the Year by the Louisiana Athletic Trainers Association this summer.