Not many kids have a clear vision of their future, but Mike Burnstein sure
did.
At 14, Burnstein volunteered to do equipment duties for a Junior A hockey
team with the hope of becoming an athletic therapist. He sharpened skates
and learned about player injuries. Before long, whenever a kid in gym class
got injured, his high school sports teacher would call him down from math
to have a look.
"This is what I wanted to do all my life," says Burnstein, who spent 20
seasons as the head athletic therapist for the Vancouver Canucks.
Burnstein knew exactly where to go for training, and shortly after graduation,
he got the job with the Canucks. But it wasn't long before he had his baptism
of fire. Star player Pavel Bure received a serious injury early in the season.
Bure blew out his anterior cruciate ligament -- an important ligament surrounding
the knee. It was going to take months of work.
"It was a big hurdle for me to overcome," says Burnstein, admitting that
coping with Bure's fame was a challenge. "When he got hurt at the start of
the season, I was thrown in the kitchen right away. He's one of the best players
in the world and I had to rehab him back."
If that wasn't enough, the ever-watchful media also focused on Burnstein
and Bure. But they both came through it. "At the time I hated it," Burnstein
says. "Now I can sit back and relax. Once you've been through something like
that, you know it can't get any worse."
While the pressures outside the professional sports umbrella aren't as
intense, all therapists deal with the future of athletes in their job. "Knowing
you're helping a young athlete is important, even though they don't realize
it at the time," says Lynn Bookalam, head athletic therapist and clinic coordinator
at McGill University.
While Bookalam doesn't work in pro sports, she has worked with world-class
athletes as chief athletic therapist at the Olympic Games. Sometimes her work
demands round-the-clock care, depending on the conditions under which the
injury occurred.
"I remember when a precision figure skater collided with a teammate, hit
her head and suffered a mild concussion," says Bookalam. "I ran on to the
ice, assessed her and arranged for transport to the first aid room. Because
we were at the world championships and living in the same hotel, I treated
her four times per day."
Then there's the mixed pressure of balancing what's best for the athlete
and what's best for the sport. Convincing an athlete to hold back or even
leave the sport can be tough.
"The hardest part is telling an athlete they have to alter their participation
level in their late teens or early 20s due to a serious injury," says Bookalam.
Kent Falb, president of the National Athletic Trainers' Association, says
a trainer's work is vital to the success of any team, yet trainers still struggle
with their public image. "There's lots of trainers out there -- computer trainers,
horse trainers, lion trainers," laughs Falb, who is also head athletic trainer
with the Detroit Lions.
Falb was once asked to speak at a Rotary Club meeting. The speaker
introduced him as a lion trainer -- needless to say, Falb always emphasizes
the word "athletic" when he talks about his job. "When people just say the
word trainer, it doesn't give us the respect or the dignity," he says.
But there are pluses to the business, Falb says. "I like the fact that
you're in a health profession, but you're dealing with healthy, physically
active people," he says.
"You could treat people in a clinic with these types of injuries, using
the same techniques. But here I'm dealing with the injuries, but with world-class
athletes. And I'm involved in a highly competitive, highly professional business."
Perhaps the biggest reward an athletic trainer receives is helping athletes
reach the pinnacle of success, while showing them how to lead a healthy, productive
life once they retire from the sport.
"My job has had a tremendous impact on my life," says Bookalam. "It has
allowed me to put it in better perspective, and I've learned that unless you're
healthy yourself, you can't help other injured athletes. It's taught me that
there is life after elite sports -- good health later in life might be worth
more than the moment of victory at the time."