TORRINGTON – A blown out knee at rugby practice in high school gave Bryant McCarty the itch to become an athletic trainer, a journey that landed him at Eastern Wyoming College.
McCarty has worked with athletes, factory workers and soldiers since high school. He got the urge to work in the medical and rehabilitation field after the incident in high school.
“In high school, I was playing rugby, and one practice I blew my knee out,” McCarty said. “I was able to not have to have surgery and that was my first brush with physical therapy and any kind of medicine really.”
McCarty, originally from the Salt Lake City area in Utah, traveled from one side of the country to the other before settling in Goshen County. After high school, he studied for a year at Brigham Young University. He served on a mission in Texas for two years before returning to Utah.
“When I got back, I was thinking about what I wanted to do,” McCarty said. “For some reason I kept thinking about that physical therapy clinic that I had gone to.”
McCarty went to the same clinic in Utah and got a job as a physical therapy aide for about a year. After that, McCarty joined the Utah Army National Guard as a medic. He then went back to school and continued to work full time for the National Guard. McCarty graduated BYU with a degree in athletic training in 2013.
“I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do going back to school and I was looking at all the majors and I kind of thought, well athletic training, that’s basically what I’m doing now, but only for a sports team, so I’ll just do that,” McCarty said. “I was like, well I’m a good medic so I think I’ll be a good athletic trainer.”
With a degree in athletic training, McCarty took his talents to Connecticut, where he worked as an industrial athletic trainer. He worked with factory workers who had pain lasting more than a couple days. McCarty also took the knowledge he got from the workers to come up with ways to prevent injuries. He estimated 75 percent of his work was in preventative care.
“I was wanting to get back into the athletic side of athletic training and deal more with sports teams,” McCarty said after he and his family moved back west after a year in Connecticut. “One thing that I really have a passion for is rehabilitation, but then taking that rehab knowledge and putting it into sports-specific strength and conditioning.”
Since Dec. 5, McCarty has been balancing his time between the five sports EWC offers. Recently, each week he has been working out with the volleyball team, getting to the arena to work with the rodeo team and preparing mens’ and womens’ basketball players for games and practices.
McCarty spends much of his time on campus with the athletes. He often creates individual workouts and treatment plans for the players. Like the players, McCarty often grabs a dumbbell or medicine ball to do the same workout he is putting the players through.
“That’s one thing about me that you don’t see a lot of other people do, as far as strength and conditioning, where they’ll get down and actually do the workout with everybody else,” McCarty said. “That’s a personal decision that I’ve made. I’m not going to be a hypocrite when it comes to working out.”
On top of doing individual and team workouts, McCarty addresses the needs of the players as far as prevention or recovery. He welcomes any and all athletes with an issue to come in. He often tapes ankles and calves before practices or games and offers massages or stretches to help a certain area of the body.
Following around athletes from five sports teams creates a hectic schedule. McCarty often does not attend away games, but still prepares the players before they hit the road. He is also on stand by during every home event if something were to happen.
“You’re dividing your time between everything. I’ve got basketball practices and games and then volleyball is starting to have practices again,” McCarty said. “As much as I can, I’m going out to the indoor arena out at the fairgrounds to spend time with the rodeo kids. My schedule is dictated by the needs of the sports teams.”
When McCarty is not running from a workout to practice or vice versa, he is building relationships with the college athletes. He said he hopes to build trust with the athletes through hard work. He also said that he is not afraid to admit when he doesn’t know something and offers to learn together with the athlete or send them someplace that would know the answer.
“The better relationship I have with my athletes helps me be the most successful I can be,” McCarty said. “One thing that tends to happen in medicine is we think of people as injuries, we don’t remember their names or faces. It really helps to be an athletic trainer to step out of that in that these are people, these are kids.”
McCarty also has to build relationships with the coaches at EWC. He often checks in with the coaches to talk about the welfare of the players, as well as update them on any changes.
“First and foremost, it’s good that EWC decided to hire that in. Bryant seems like he is doing a really great job,” men’s basketball coach Neal Sherbeyn said. “It takes a lot of pressure of me to be able to send them to the trainer and not worry about them. He has been a good addition to EWC sports.”
After two months in the position, McCarty has no plans of leaving anytime soon. He and his family have grown to be able to work around the long hours on nights and weekends.
“I just really enjoy my job,” McCarty said in closing. “It’s really fun here and it’s some good people, good kids.”
