Harlem Sports Medicine Club does far more than just teaching students how to wrap ankles, it also helps build future healthcare professionals. Led by Jason Lubben, the program has earned a strong reputation for giving students hands-on experience that many schools don’t offer.
Jada Roussel (12) describes the club as an essential support team for the school’s athletes. “We aim to help athletes rehabilitate whenever they’re injured. We help to prepare them before games. We do things like help them stretch. We give the exercise to do at home whenever they are injured, we tape them up before games.”
Anyone can join this club as according to Roussel, “Anyone, as long as you’re interested in helping athletes, you’re around people all the time, so you have to have good people skills, you just have to have a love for helping people.”
Inside the training room students take on responsibilities similar to working professionals Roussel explains, “So when you’re in the program you kind of act as a physical therapist when you’re in the training room, outside the training room you’re more of an athletic trainer so it kind of gives you those skills kind of like a physical therapist.”
The club also emphasizes academic and practical preparation, “We learn the necessary steps that it takes in order to help the athlete rehabilitate and get back into their sport, we learn different exercises that the athlete needs in order to strengthen whatever injury they had,” Roussel says.
For many students, the club is a stepping stone toward careers in healthcare. Roussel hopes to take the skills she’s developed beyond high school, “It prepares me for helping athletics in college and hopefully someday I can help a professional team and be a trainer for that.”
Lubben, the club’s advisor, expands opportunities by connecting students with real world professionals. Roussel notes, “Jason invites some of his co-workers from Athletico to come in to speak, he also has seniors in college who are also going through the athletic training pathway, he has them come and they teach what they know and we get to experience different ways how to do things through them.”
Blake Erdmann (12) says the work they do is all about consistency and prevention. “We make sure that they’re [the athletes] doing everything that is necessary whether that’s taping or having them do exercises to prevent injury” Erdmann believes the program gives Harlem students a major advantage, “‘I’ll be more experienced, especially getting into college. I’ll be able to know what I’m talking about before hand so I’m not learning this for the first time more like a review of what I already learned”
Erdmann also says the club helps Harlem stand out, “I think it boosted our reputation a lot, not a lot of schools around here that have a program like this, so we kinda are setting an example and doing a lot of things other schools aren’t.”
For graduates like Mckenna Cunz from the class of 2024, the sports medicine club continues to pay off long after high school. “Not only did I put it into my college application but I also put it into a lot of my job applications because it is such a major thing. When I got my CNA job I put it in their because it represents how you’ve worked with others, how you’ve worked as a team along with how you’ve worked with resident patients and it just shows your leadership to and it shows all kind of stuff that jobs are looking for in the healthcare field.”
Cunz’s biggest advice to current students interested in the club is getting involved. “I would say just do it, I was scared to do it my freshman year and I regret it cause then I would have been involved for more than four years but I was scared and there’s no reason to be scared as everyone is so welcoming and they just want you to learn and work together.”
With strong leadership from Lubben and a passionate group of students, Harlem’s Sports Medicine Club continues to grow, strengthening athletes, shaping future healthcare workers and setting an example for other programs in the area.
