Story by Eric Cantu
They can be found along the sidelines at every Palomar sports game and with 450 student-athletes across 22 sports, the Comet’s athletic trainers are in constant demand.
Felica Heise and Dennis Greenhill, and Trevor Van Haute make up the athletic training team that takes care of the largest Athletic programs in the county and 3rd in California. These three trainers come together and build a successful team every day by utilizing the knowledge and experience they each have.
Felica has been a trainer with Palomar for 24 years as head athletic trainers. Dennis, originally working to become a history teacher turned his attention towards athletic training because of a class about sports medicine and healing injuries. He went onto SDSU’s athletic training program and went to Mesa college for his internship, and is now in his 12 years with Palomar.
Trevor Van Haute, the youngest trainer on staff was a Palomar student himself from 2013-15 and went on to SDSU’s athletic training program. Van Haute wanted to become an athletic trainer after he was a student-athlete and suffered an injury, making him realize helping athletes is something that would mean a great deal to him. He is in his second year as an athletic trainer here at Palomar.
“Knowing that an athlete is going to be able to get back up and lead a successful life is what makes the job worth it,” said Palomar athletic trainer Dennis Greenhill.
Together they have encountered events that have required them to apply their emergency medicine skills to bring athletes back with an AED (automated external defibrillator) and to see limbs facing a direction they’re not meant to be facing. All these events have stayed with them throughout their careers and they take it all in and continue to aid our athletes in their time of need.
Palomar’s trainers have been successful by way of delegating tasks between each other which allows them to be interchangeable. The career of an athletic trainer is meant for someone who can be prepared to handle anything that can come their way at any moment, they must be able to work as hard as they can and still they must be able to manage post-op rehab, oversee athletes, provide event coverage with emergency medicine, do administrative work and evaluate insurance papers.
The job done by our trainers is one that challenges them every day, but a job they believe worth it if they are to be aiding in the future of their athletes.
