Colby Miltenberger is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Sagauro High School for AZPreps365.com

Nickie May has spent most of her career as an athletic trainer at Saguaro High School, after finding her passion for the job when she was in high school.

May was first exposed to athletic training in her freshman year when a friend, who was an athletic training aide, noticed she was checking out a cute boy and suggested May join the program. The rest was history.

“I very quickly learned a lot of skills: taping, wrapping, stretching, cleaning, and game setup and cleanup. I was really good at it, and was a fish in water and fell in love and decided that that’s what I wanted to do,” May said. “And I never lost the love or passion.”

May went on to attend Northern Arizona University, where she got her degree, then secured a job after graduation at Sunnyside High School in Tucson. After a year, she moved to Sinagua High School in Flagstaff, where she spent another two years before coming to Saguaro in 2008.

“This has been my home and the people in this community have been my family for 16 years,” May said.

Since her arrival at Saguaro, May has worked hard to create the most optimal program for her athletes’ success, while giving students opportunities to gain experience in her field as well.

“I take care of all the prevention, immediate emergency care, evaluation and diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation, and return to play of all the athletic injuries and illness,” May said.

In her responsibilities as athletic trainer, May goes above and beyond in thoroughness and execution to ensure the athletes’ safety. This includes spending long hours working with athletes when they’re injured in practice, being at games in case of emergencies, working with coaches, and pairing with the school and boosters to provide support so the athletic program can continue to expand.

“If we’re going to be elite, then all of our parts have to be elite,” May said. “We have to be elite in the weight room, we have to have elite-level facilities, we have to have a nice field, we have to have good equipment and we have to have an elite athletic trainer.”

Saguaro offers a number of services through its training staff. The school  provides nutritional meals for players before games, schedules an additional assistant athletic trainer when there are conflicting events, and has athletic training aides to help practices run smoother. 

The school has agreements with Gatorade to provide hydration, and athletes wear dri-FIT Nike jerseys to prevent overheating. Saguaro has a relationship with HonorHealth to get faster medical responses and surgeries if needed. The school is always looking for new and safer equipment along with frequent updates to its athletic facilities, such as ice baths and privacy tents. 

In 2011, May started two classes that are available to Saguaro students, including an introduction to sports medicine and advanced sports medicine. May makes sure students can take what they learn in those classes and apply it to their futures in some way, regardless of the field they choose to go into.

“We have to go over the human body, so that translates into any medical field,” May said. “We do things that are sports-medicine specific, athletic-training specific, but it can translate. Also, it’s workplace skills, how to look at a schedule, how to dress professionally, how to speak to adults, how to show up on time and be reliable and maintain your area, so it’s also workplace skills that translate to any profession.”

May has set up many of her students for success with her classes and aide program.

After spending four years as an athletic trainer aide, Lauryl Wastchakk said May helped her find a job and taught her things she still uses in college.

“She helped me get an internship at a physical therapy clinic, which led to a job,” Wastchakk said. “And all of the information that she taught, I still use daily in classes in college and at work, so it was all pretty applicable.”

Between the support she rallies for the athletes and training students to be trainers, May is a behind-the-scenes hero at Saguaro who has played a big part in the Sabercats’ success.