On New Year’s night, the No. 1 ranked Alabama football team will play No. 5 Ohio State in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans with two goals—to win the Sugar Bowl and to advance to the first-ever NCAA Division I playoff championship game.
Good health will be important to the cause, and a Yardville native will be critical in maintain it for the Crimson Tide.
For right there on the Alabama sideline, in the thick of it all, will be student-trainer Ryan Larkin, a 2012 Steinert graduate. And if it’s like any other day of her life during the past nine months, she will wonder, “What the heck am I doing here?”
“Every game day and every day I ask myself that question,” Larkin said. “It is not lost on me the unbelievable opportunity this university has given me. It is unreal. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I am one of the lucky few that get this type of career experience. I will never take for granted the opportunity I have been given.”
In other words, Larkin is living the dream.
Now in her junior year, the athletic training major is taking her turn working with arguably the highest profile college football program in the nation.
The Alabama training program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education, which means there are specific types of clinical rotations each student must complete. One of those must be with an equipment intensive sport, and football is Alabama’s lone option for that, meaning everyone in the major does a football rotation.
Larkin works primarily with the defensive line along with another student-trainer, but she noted that during practice they are spread out along the field to ensure that every player within range has what they need.
“Ryan’s responsibilities vary from day to day,” said Jeff Allen, Alabama’s head football athletic trainer. “Generally speaking, she provides medical care to our student-athletes under our direction. This often times means applying therapeutic modalities to treat any of the number of injuries we see in our facility on a daily basis.”
Larkin is also assigned to the defensive line during practices.
“In this role she is able to serve as a first responder and be my eyes and ears to the defensive line,” Allen said. “More importantly, however, she is able to do all of these things for us while learning all of the things a second-year athletic training student is expected to learn at our clinical site.”
It has been a journey that started during Larkin’s freshman year at Steinert. She hails from an athletic family as her dad, Pete, is a Spartan Hall of Famer and former college basketball standout, while her sister Caitlin played basketball and soccer at Steinert and is now an assistant for the Nottingham girls’ basketball team.
Larkin dabbled in sports herself, playing basketball for CYO and Steinert. The story in Larkin lore is that in CYO, she got so excited after making her first basket she just ran off the floor to hug her dad, who was coaching the team, while the four remaining players tried to defend.
But her interest went beyond competing, and in the first week of her freshman year Larkin approached Spartan trainer Chris McLaughlin about working with him. That experience paved the way for her future major.
“I have always been interested in sports coming from a sports oriented-family,” Larkin said. “I was always interested in the medical field.”
She became a mainstay at Steinert athletic events over the next four years, but did a lot of work behind the scenes such as cleaning, restocking inventory and taping athletes. She was also at every practice and had to forgo some socializing in order to devote time to her passion.
“My social life was impacted, but I was able to still participate in high school activities and do things with friends,” she said. “We worked pretty much every night including Friday night and Saturday morning, but it was worth it. I never thought of it as a sacrifice because I loved it and I understood the commitment I would need to have if I wanted to pursue athletic training as a career.”
Larkin was set on going to a warm weather school and said the minute she stepped onto the Alabama campus it was the place for her. Not just the tradition and the weather, but also its outstanding athletic training reputation.
During her freshman year, Larkin only took classes in her first semester. In the spring, she did four one-week clinical rotations, which were part of the prospective athletic training class she took in order to apply for the athletic training program. The process included interviews, recommendation letters and grades.
In the fall semester of her sophomore year, Larkin did a clinical rotation as an athletic training student for the volleyball team. That gave way to assignments with the swim team and then spring football.
Then came the most coveted job a student-trainer can have: working with a football team vying for a national championship.
Larkin broke her responsibilities down into four parts. On weekdays, she and 12 other students go to practices, where they are responsible for hydration. They carry kits stocked with tape and other tools of the trade.
Before games, she either assists in the locker room with tape and equipment adjustments or field setup.
“That means making Gatorade, filling up the water bottles and organizing the sideline to allow us to be efficient,” she said.
Her game-time assignment is generally bench or wound care. If she’s working with a bench, she passes out water or Gatorade.
“With the wound care assignment, I wear gloves, and have all the supplies I would need if someone were bleeding,” she said. “Then I walk along the sidelines and make sure no one has blood on their uniforms or a wound that needs to be covered. That is my favorite job!”
Finally, she helps clean the field and locker room during post-game.
Larkin does all of this among a group of players—not to mention head coach Nick Saban—who are idolized by millions of fans across the country and especially in football-crazed Tuscaloosa. It is easy to get overwhelmed by the future NFL players she is working on, but Larkin does not let it impact her.
“At the end of the day, our athletic training students are able to forge professional relationships with the athletes and know these guys on a personal level and thus the ‘star’ status is not necessarily present for them,” Allen said. “Ryan is able to treat every patient the exact same, from the walk-on lineman to a starting skill player.”
In fact, she takes it a step further, which shouldn’t surprise any of the Steinert athletes she worked on.
“Specifically,” Allen added, “Ryan is able to maintain her professional demeanor while still mixing in the occasional playful retort to the snarky comment from an athlete.”
That’s not to say there is a lot of tomfoolery going on. With the mass media descending upon campus throughout the fall, the football program is under the microscope and must present the right image.
“The atmosphere is always intense every day,” Larkin said. “This is an environment that has a lot on the line all the time. Each person within the program and team knows how to handle themselves and what it takes for them to help the team advance. I think this whole school has a sense of confidence, as it should.”
That confidence has been well placed this year. After losing last year’s Iron Bowl to Auburn in shocking fashion—having its potential game-winning field goal returned for the game-winning touchdown by Auburn as time ran out—the Tide rolled against its archrival this year.
“Alabama-Auburn is the biggest college rivalry so there is always a heightened sense around this game that something big could happen,” Larkin said. “However, we have a job to do so it is business as usual. If we start to act nervous the players might sense our change in attitude, so we just believe in the process and take care of what needs to be done.”
The trainers were allowed to smile afterward, however.
“The feeling after this game was unreal,” Larkin said. “It felt great once again to be the winner. You are playing for bragging rights for the next 365 days, and I am so glad to have those rights back! Not only were we playing for the bragging rights, but also for a chance to win the [Southeast Conference] West and go on to play for the SEC title.”
And they won that title by crushing Missouri in the SEC championship game, punching their ticket as the top seed in the NCAA playoffs.
“It was an unbelievable opportunity to be able to attend the SEC championship game,” Larkin said. “It is the greatest feeling in the world to feel the confetti fall onto our heads. I cannot wait to see New Orleans, and hopefully see the team win the Sugar Bowl.”
There was an excitement in Larkin’s voice when she discussed it. But she and her colleagues must subdue those emotions on game day. The stadium is their work place.
“It is extremely intense on the sideline, but as an AT student I have to maintain a level of professionalism,” Larkin said. “I have a job to do, and I am not there as a fan. This is like my job. I am there to help support the team, and my job is to hydrate them and I do my best to focus on that.”
Sometimes, like during this season’s games against LSU and Mississippi State, it can be hard to focus, though.
“We had to focus and make sure we were there if a player needed us,” Larkin said. “We can celebrate after the field is clean, and the team is taken care of.”
Larkin has one game left before rotating to her next job, which will be with a Tuscaloosa-area high school program in the fall. So far, she has earned rave reviews from her boss.
“Ryan has been an excellent athletic training student for us,” Allen said. “She has been able to balance her academic schedule with her clinical schedule and has been one of our best students. Ryan has shown us that she has the skill-set necessary to take her a long way in the field of athletic training. I believe the sky is the limit for her, and she will be able to take her career wherever she wants to go.”
Larkin called this past year “a once in a lifetime experience. I don’t even know what else to say about it other than it has been the greatest year of my life. This has been the best education I could ever have when it comes to athletic training.”
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