Jeff Piercy
CFL.ca
Imagine going to work every day and having to deal with athlete’s foot, bulging discs, and Marwan Hage. This life is a daily reality for the athletic therapists of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and their peers around the CFL (minus Marwan of course, he is unique to this organization) and they all seem to come back year after year.
For those about to heal us, we salute you!
Perhaps you are reading this and your parental instincts are kicking in, making you thinking that being a trainer for a CFL team would be like having 50 kids to love and look after. Well it is kind of like that; if your kids range from 170 to 320 pounds, are constantly hurt, take you for granted, seldom do what they are told, are usually all running late and thus all needing you at the same time, and ignore you when you are with them because they are constantly arguing amongst themselves as to whether Kobe Bryant is better than Michael Jordan. You may think that someday things will change, but considering they have been having the same argument for the last four years, not even Barack Obama could change things in the training room!
And then comes game day.
As per every other day of the year, everyone is tugging on your sleeve at the same time and leaving a trail of destruction all around you. Everyone wants to be stretched and taped and massaged and cracked an acupunctured and meanwhile the team’s Irish/Scottish contingent is in a huff because he can’t find the sunscreen.
Then during the game people keep demanding water bottles and never bring them back to you so you are left picking up water bottles off the ground like they are Easter Eggs, but as soon as you find one you have to give it away and then try to find it again. That lasts for about three hours, interrupted only by a fifteen minute half time which is just another dose of people wanting more from you.
No, being a CFL trainer is not for the faint of heart. It is not for those looking for affection. It is not for those who have an aversion to big sweaty men in compression shorts. It takes a certain breed to relish this line of work, and it is time we showed them our appreciation. I would like to climb to the top of a mountain and yell at the top of my lungs, “Today is Hug Your Trainer Day in the CFL”, but I don’t have a mountain, I have a blog on CFL.ca, so hug your trainers guys.
Just don’t leave them needing treatment of their own.
Jeff Piercy is in his fourth CFL season. He was a second round pick in the 2005 Canadian Draft.
