Athletic Training at TAMUK a Labor of Love

Meet Athletic Trainers Ruben Cantu and Missy Frazier

Kingsville--An athlete cannot be successful without talent and hard work. It’s the athlete’s dedication to the sport and the will to do everything necessary to be successful that gets an athlete where he or she wants to go. Often times an athlete will search for the best coach that will be the driver that will guide him or her to the top of the sport. But even more often is the overlooking of a crucial role on that journey to success. Behind the scenes are athletic trainers who are always on call to put athletes back together again. Trainers keep the athletes on the courts and fields that allow coaches to mold and fine-tune athletes to success. Trainers, in short, are the backbones of athletic programs, who work long hours and seldom receive the gratitude and recognition they deserve.

Texas A&M-Kingsville has a very dedicated and motivated staff. Missy Fraser and Ruben Cantu are two full time athletic trainers that have helped Javelina athletics become as successful as they are. It takes a very special person to become an athletic trainer. Patience is the greatest virtue, which can be difficult when coaches are breathing down their neck wondering why an athlete isn’t 100 percent yet. Trainers do what they do because they love athletics and they want to help athletes succeed.

“It’s time consuming,” head athletic trainer Ruben Cantu explained, “but every now and then someone will make a comment and that just reminds you why you are here doing what you’re doing. There are little rewards like when you get a thanks, those kinds of things are really full of self-satisfaction.”

Assistant trainer Missy Fraser couldn’t agree more.

“What’s rewarding is working with athletes, seeing them get better, particularly the ones who’ve had long injuries that required surgery to fix,” said Fraser. “Watching the athletes overcome those injuries and coming back to their sport and excel again is very rewarding to me.”

TAMUK runs an impressive internship program that allows student trainers to grow and gain valuable experience.

“We throw the kids into a sport a lot earlier than in other schools,” said Cantu. “A lot of programs will wait until their senior year to be put into a sport where they actually are in charge. Here we’ve had freshmen thrown right into a sport.”

“The most rewarding part for me is putting a product out there; the student trainers go out and develop their own programs,” Cantu. “We’ve been pretty successful, we’ve had kids go on to work in high schools and universities.”

Fraser added, “Seeing my student trainers learning and getting better is rewarding as well. When a student trainer is able to look at an athlete and know what the injury is, how to rehabilitate it and realizes that they know how to do it, makes me proud.”

Fraser knows the demands of the student athlete because she was one at the University of Iowa. Fraser was a thrower on the track and field team before a devastating car accident left Fraser with a broken back and six months of rehab.

“Spending six months in rehab was the best thing for me,” said Fraser. “I was originally a pre-PT major and it was then when I decided I wanted to go into athletic training because I wanted to work mainly with athletes. Now, not only do I work with athletes, I work outside a lot and I get to travel all over and meet great people.”

Sometimes it can seem like the trainer is working against athletes, holding them off full strength for that one more day at practice or making the athletes come in hours before practice for treatment. A lot of times it is hard for an athlete or even a coach to see that what the trainer recommends is for the best. But it is for the best. Trainers are in this profession not for the money, but for the love of sport and the ability to help young athletes become their best.

Cantu summed it up, “I think the best part of my job is working with the youth.”