Written by Neal Packer, Graduated Spring 2025, Health and Kinesiology major

Published November 25th , 2025

I’m grateful for the opportunity to to reflect on my experiences as an undergrad Sports Medicine Student Aide for the University of Utah Football program. I chose to apply for this position because of an interest I’ve always had in working in sports medicine. I love sports and I love healthcare. I saw this as a great opportunity to help me in choosing a career path in healthcare. 

Daily grind as an undergrad sports medicine student aide 

For the most part, our job as student aides involves filling coolers with ice, water, Gatorade, etc., setting up and taking down hydration stations and emergency equipment at the practice fields, and hydrating the athletes during practices and conditioning sessions. To some, that may seem monotonous. We do a lot of the grunt work to ensure that things run smoothly and are prepared for the full-time certified athletic trainers (ATCs) to have everything they need in case an injury or other medical situation arises. We’re also allowed to help tape ankles and wrists before practices.

Perhaps the most important part of sports medicine is helping the athletes through rehab and treatment for both minor and major injuries. As student aides we aren’t allowed to do any injury evaluations or exercise programming for rehab, but we are allowed to help the athletes through their rehab routines and even assist in the treatment room with some of the treatment modalities. The most common modalities that we are able to use are e-stims such as the Hivamat, InterX, and modalities that apply a combination of heat and e-stim such as ultrasound combo and the Winback.

Unique experiences working for Utah Football 

Working for a Power 4 conference football program brings with it a set of unique and incredible experiences. As mentioned previously, undergrad student aides do most of the grunt work in a sports medicine facility, but the payoff for all of this hard work is having the opportunity to work for the program during the actual football season! This involves working on the sidelines for home games and even some road games. This season I’ve been lucky enough to work on the sidelines for home games against Southern Utah, Arizona, and BYU. I’ve also been able to travel to road games against Oklahoma State and Arizona State. By the end of the season I will have also worked one more home game against Iowa State and two more road games against Colorado and Central Florida. Road games are fun, but they’re still work trips at the end of the day. To put it into perspective, we are allowed 8 undergrad student aides to work home games and only travel 3 for road games. It’s a lot of work for 3 people to do! 

This experience has helped me realize my future career path. It’s a lot of work and I haven’t had much downtime as I’ve balanced working ~40 hour work weeks while enrolled as a full-time student taking STEM classes, but I’ve loved working in sports and working with athletes is incredibly rewarding. I’m grateful for this opportunity because it has helped prepare me for my future career by giving me valuable patient care experience.