Being an athlete here at Cerritos College, it’s easy to forget and take for granted support teams.
To help our athletes achieve their full potential, Cerritos carries fitness programs to strict diets, but what often isn’t recognized is the recovery aspects of sports that are often very important for injured athletes.
The Athletic Center staff is ready to help student-athletes recover from any injuries they have taken in the field or court.
Ayuna Yoshii, a student athletic trainer at the center has come a long way to pursue a career in helping athletes recover.
“I’m from Japan, and in my country it’s not popular and I don’t have support, so I just use the Internet or a book to help.”
Athletes in Japan don’t have a wide support net as they do here in America. Rehabbing from an injury takes on more of a conventional approach as opposed to special attention from a trainer.
She works with a wide array of students and staff to help her care for the people who are in the athletics programs.
Coming from a different culture, she’s here doing from taping to icing athletes.
She’s pursuing her passion far from home and one day might return to help her home land of Japan to help her fellow athletes over there.
Although her current plans are to stay here and work, she has had a lot of help from her fellow students and colleagues.
“We rehab injured athletes, set up plans, and we also do a lot of taping, and we sit around and observe and make sure nothing goes off the rails, and if it does we’re there, we are the first responders,” said Anthony Allen, a student-athletic trainer.
He added, “She knows more than I do, but without each other it wouldn’t work. We would be overwhelmed at times.”
The feeling of camaraderie and the environment seem to play a big factor on how the students and staff work together in the center. This in turn with their passions insures that the trainers provide a welcoming environment to their work.
“I’d say we’re close, yeah I’d say were pretty close. We like to play games and have fun,” Allen said.
