For this internship, Mason student was camera-ready
Austin Cross, a George Mason University junior majoring in film and video studies, turned his love of sports video production into a successful internship as a videographer with the Washington Redskins. “He’s got skills,” Redskins video director Mike Bracken said.
What surprised Abigail Solis most about her internship as an athletic trainer with the NFL’s Washington Redskins was how the players seemed so down to earth.
On the practice fields during spring mini camp, players asked Solis where they should vacation and what she thinks about singer Taylor Swift.
“It’s different from seeing them on TV,” Solis said. “They’re normal people.”
Solis, a senior athletic training major at George Mason University, is believed to be the Redskins’ first female athletic training academic intern and will work home games in the pre- and regular seasons.
Not a bad way to finish her final semester before graduating in December.
It’s also “a huge step for the profession,” said Associate Professor Amanda Caswell, coordinator of the Athletic Training Education Program in the School of Recreation, Health, and Tourism. “It’s an opportunity to place a student who is going to pave the way for future female athletic training students.”
“The opportunities I’ve had here are a lot different than they would have been somewhere else,” Solis said of George Mason. “Other schools, I’ve heard, do all their clinicals within that facility.”
Solis, on the other hand, is in her sixth internship, including three at area high schools.
With the Redskins, Solis has done a little bit of everything, said Doug Quon, the team’s assistant athletic trainer and Solis’ supervisor.
Solis helped set up the treatment room, stretched players before and after practice and did pre-practice taping. She also did the grunt work, stocking and organizing supplies and carting around the practice fields the 10-gallon water containers that kept players hydrated.
“I thought it was going to be, like, ‘You can’t treat that player,’” Solis said. “But it’s not that way.”
If Solis gains her athletic training certification in October, she can be even more involved in treating injuries.
For now, though, after enduring jokes from co-workers about getting her own bathroom, and players good-naturedly wondering if she could handle the heavy water containers, Solis, in a sense, is one of the guys.
“She’s done a great job,” Quon said. “She’s maintained a professional image and demeanor and gained the trust of the players.”