AU Athletics -- By the Book: Is Time Ever on Dort’s Side?
March 3, 2005

By Paul Carmany, AU Sports Information

Samuel Gompers must be spinning in his grave.

The AFL-CIO would probably love to have a word with Ashland University’s Megan Dort (Pickerington, OH). Dort never clocks in, or clocks out. She just stays on the clock – and never complains. The term overtime isn’t in her vocabulary.

Megan Dort, a member of the AU swimming team and an athletic training major, must balance all her activities and still allow time for academics. Throughout this year, Dort attended swimming sessions, went to class all day and then worked at cutting into her requirement of working 150 hours per semester with AU’s athletic training staff.

The sophomore is a member of the AU swimming team and is an athletic training major. Both of those pursuits require a major time investment. Swimmers normally practice twice a day – early in the morning and then in late afternoon. Throughout this year, Dort attended those sessions, went to class all day and then worked at cutting into her requirement of working 150 hours per semester with AU’s athletic training staff.

“Her strength is time management,” stressed Jeremy Hancock, a member of AU’s athletic training staff. “She does well in athletic training, in the classroom and in the pool. Those three things, that’s a lot to ask of a sophomore in college.”

In the fall, Dort’s day consisted of swimming practice in the morning, classes in the middle of the day, football practice which she worked as a student-athletic trainer from 2 to 6 p.m., a quick dinner from 6 to 7 p.m., and an individual swimming workout from 7 to 9 p.m.

“I tried to get to bed by 10 or 11,” said Dort. “Then I had to get up for morning practice at 5:30.”

As that schedule illustrates, Dort pretty much lives by the clock. She does well when she’s judged by a timepiece. Since she arrived on campus, she’s been a mainstay for the AU swimmers. At the 2004 Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championships, she was third in the 200 breaststroke and fourth in the 100 breaststroke. This year, she narrowly missed qualifying for the NCAA Division II national championship meet in the 100 breaststroke (she was second in the event at the GLIAC meet). Dort owns the third fastest times in school history in the 100 and 200 breaststroke.

Dort originally planned on majoring in management information systems. A week before she began at AU, she switched to athletic training.

“It just fit,” said Dort. “I had been rehabbing some injuries and I became interested in the process. My club coach was an exercise physiologist. He got me interested.”

Dort brings an interesting perspective to the training room. She’s an athlete and knows what it’s like to fight through injuries. During her career, she’s had rotator cuff tendonitis, a sprained ankle, a strained hamstring and an injury to her deltoid muscle. Just from personal experience, Dort has received a strong primer on different forms of treatment.

“I’d say athletes have a better understanding of it,” said Hancock, when asked about having an athletic trainer with a playing background. “They have an advantage in that they know what injuries feel like and they know what it’s like to go through rehab. But as a trainer, they have to work a sport and that takes a lot of time. They (student-athletes) aren’t around as much.”

Dort has served as a student athletic trainer for men’s basketball and she’s worked football in the fall and spring. Football has been a real eye opener for her.

“You get to interact a little bit more with the player and you see a wider variety of injuries,” Dort noted. “You’re constantly doing things on the sideline and it’s a little more interesting.”

Student athletic trainers don’t advance to that practical training unless they can handle the classroom work. That presents a different kind of challenges.

“It’s a lot of memorization and you have to stay up to date with it every day,” said Dort. “I’m in my second anatomy class and it’s a little more in depth than the first. We have athletic training classes and we have to do a lot of checkdowns. We had over 100 last year. A checklist could be for a lower extremity evaluation. We have different evaluations for ACL techniques, PCL techniques. You have to know what’s wrong and what you’re going to do about it.”

Presently, Dort has two other students in her training classes. That leaves plenty of time for individual instruction. Hancock and the rest of the athletic training staff have also been receptive to working with student-athletes to blend their playing schedules with their work times.

As much as Dort has enjoyed football and basketball, her first love remains swimming. She’s not sure about her career plans and the fact that she’s a sophomore means she has plenty of time to sort everything out. But she admits, working with her own sport – swimming – would be another perfect fit.

“That would be my dream job,” said Dort. “I think I could relate better to swimmers. I’d know exactly what they’re feeling.”