When Owensboro High School graduate Nathan Kaminski was injured during his prep football career as a Red Devil, he knew there’d be an athletic trainer there to help him but at the time, that’s all he knew.
Fast forward a few years and Kaminski has a degree in exercise science from Western Kentucky University and is heading into his second year of graduate school at the University of Arkansas.
Rather than spend one of his last summers as a student relaxing, he looked and eventually found an opportunity with the Cleveland Browns where he can see athletic trainers helping some of the best athletes in the NFL,
During the summer, NFL teams have larger rosters until they have to turn in their final 53-man roster before the regular season.
“All the NFL teams do this thing where they hire athletic training students in the summers to help them out and get things done,” he said.
When his football career ended and he headed off to Bowling Green, Kaminski said while it may not have been clear at the time, he knew he wanted to stay in sports.
“I got hurt playing high school football and I really didn’t know what an athletic trainer was. I didn’t know what a physical therapist was, I didn’t know what an orthopedic surgeon was,” he said. “I got to realize what athletic training was and I always kind of had an interest in how the human body works and loved competing in athletics and being around sports so I kind of found the best of both worlds in athletic training.”
Kaminski said his path of becoming interested in athletic training is a common theme.
“A lot of people I’ve met in the field and a lot of my classmates, they have similar stories,” he said. “Most of us have participated in athletics in one form or fashion.”
Kaminski said while he was younger and didn’t know what an athletic trainer did, he’s learned through his studies but many others don’t know the difference between a trainer and an athletic trainer.
“The term trainer is one that’s thrown around a lot,” he said. “We don’t like being called trainers because a trainer to us is a person that can pass a certification on a website without a degree.”
The process of getting to Cleveland was a long one that started back in October. Kaminksi said he applied to the majority of NFL teams and a connection from the Razorbacks program got him an interview with the Browns.
He said it’s been great to learn from not only the Browns’ athletic trainers but the doctors and physical therapists as well.
“Sports medicine is not just taping ankles and getting people water,” he said. “It’s diagnosing of athletic injuries, it’s the prevention of athletic injuries. It is the emergency response to athletic illnesses … We do a lot of different things as a whole.”
Kaminski said since he and the fellow interns aren’t certified, they’ve been assisting in all forms of training and sports medicine.
“Myself and my other coworkers who are interns, we have to be a sponge when we’re in there,” he said. “Not necessarily things we’re doing ourselves but the experience itself of learning from the athletic trainers here, learning from the physical therapists. Taking time aside from when the athletes aren’t around to say ‘hey, I saw you doing this. Could you provide some insight on what you’re doing?’”
Kaminski knows he won’t be in Cleveland for much longer but he’s gaining as much experience as possible.
“Most of the things I’m doing right now, I’ve done at Western Kentucky, I’ve done at the high school level, at the University of Arkansas with Razorback football,” he said. “This is the beginning of my seventh year in athletic training, I’m relatively experienced in the day-to-day stuff and I’ve seen a lot of different things. A lot of this stuff seems like it’s just another day at work but it’s not another day at work. We’ve got four fields that are all grass and they’re nicer than some golf courses I’ve played on.
“I look around and I see tons of multi-million dollar athletes that I’ve been watching on TV for years. There’s definitely times where, they’re few, but there definitely are a few times when I’m not extremely busy at work and there’s a little bit of a break where I get to take a look around and just really appreciate where I am and think about ‘wow, I’m at an NFL practice right now. This is crazy.’”
With still a year before his graduates, Kaminski said he doesn’t have an ultimate goal when it comes to where he wants to land but he does have a dream that involves English soccer.
“That is an ultimate fantasy and probably won’t ever happen,” he said. “Aside from that, I really love American football as well, I grew up playing it. The whole reason I’m here is because I want to get some NFL experience, get to see how this business of an organization is run opposed to a collegiate team. It’s quite different and I’m enjoying it.”
After going from Owensboro to Bowling Green to Fayetteville to Cleveland, Kaminski isn’t concerned about location when it comes to his next stop after graduation.
“I’m totally okay with getting away but at the same time, I do love the state of Kentucky so if the right job opens up there, I would move back in a heartbeat,” he said. “I also have very much been enjoying working in professional sports so if the right job opens up there … I guess whoever comes calling first.”
