If you have ever watched a high school basketball game and one of the players gets injured, then has to be helped off the court by a medical professional and evaluated, chances are you have seen one of the athletic trainers doing their job. Athletic trainers are typically present at every game just in case something goes wrong.

Robyn Gust, athletic trainer and manager of Trinity Health’s Sports Medicine department, was recently named North Dakota Athletic Trainer of the Year for 2014 by the North Dakota Athletic Trainers Association. The group presented the award at its annual meeting April 24-25 in Grand Forks.

Gust was recognized for her many accomplishments compiled during 15 years as sports medicine manager both at Trinity Health and Minot State University, where she also serves as an adjunct instructor in the Human Performance department.

Under Gust’s leadership, Trinity expanded its sports medicine program and introduced the use of iPads to identify and manage concussion, bringing 21st century medicine to athletic training. Most recently she led a regional effort to implement a preparedness plan for mass casualty events in an athletic environment. It was an endeavor she undertook after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.

“I was very pleasantly surprised,” Gust said, about being named North Dakota Athletic Trainer of the Year. She was nominated by one of her staff, who did so in a sneaky way, she added. The application was extensive and asked for work history, Gust said, and the staff member brought up the topic of past places of employment and asked to see her resume.

“You don’t go into this field for the glory,” Gust said. “So to be recognized is pretty meaningful for the work I’ve done with this program.”

As the manager of the sports medicine department, Gust is responsible for scheduling the athletic trainers to cover all of the schools’ games in Minot, Williston State College and Dakota College at Bottineau. She also teaches two classes at Minot State University. Gust is responsible for all of the athletic teams from Our Redeemer’s Christian School and MSU hockey games. She does a lot of evaluations of athletes’ injuries and helps with rehab, too, she said.

Gust said her favorite part of being an athletic trainer is getting players healed and recovered and back in the game. “They really appreciate what I do and I get to know the athlete really well,” she added.

“I love teaching, too,” Gust continued. “It’s important to teach professionals to do it (athletic training) right.”

Originally from Kramer, Gust graduated from Newburg High School and received her bachelor’s degree from Moorhead State University in 1994. She earned her master’s degree in exercise science from Western Illinois University in 1997. Before joining the team at Trinity Health, Gust served as head athletic trainer, associate professor and athletic training program director at Huron University in South Dakota.

Gust said she chose the field of athletic training because of Trinity’s sports medicine program. She played basketball in high school and was in a car accident during her junior year. Trinity’s sports medicine team helped her through her knee injury and got her back on the basketball court. “I thought it was the coolest job and wanted to do that, too,” Gust said.

When Gust started working at Trinity in 2000, she said there were five athletic trainers. Now there are 12, she added. “The program has really exploded,” Gust said. The field is also a lot more female dominated now, she continued, but it was more male dominated when she started.

The important part of the athletic trainer’s job is done during the day, Gust said, while the games are more of a time for the athletic trainers to sit back and watch. “We see something happen and we take care of it,” she added. “People understand the profession a lot better now. And they see the importance of having a trainer at games.”

In addition to athletic training and teaching, Gust is also an active member of the U.S. Deaf Olympic Sports Medicine Team and over the years has accompanied deaf Olympians to the Deaflympics in Copenhagen, Rome, Melbourne and Taipei. In 2012, she worked with the World Cup Women’s Deaf Soccer U.S.A. National team, which won a gold medal, in Turkey.

While in college, Gust said she read about the Deaf Olympics in a magazine and thought it sounded interesting and learned sign language. “Not a lot of athletic trainers know sign language,” she said. Gust worked at the Deaf Olympic Trials in 1996 and has been involved ever since.

“I see a wide spectrum of athletes,” Gust said, referring to her work with Trinity Health. She said there are the athletes who play because their parents want them to and other athletes who are devoted and intense about the sport and have to be reigned in so they don’t further injure themselves. “My job is to make decisions based on the best interest of the athlete,” Gust said. “I’m hired to be the unbiased medical voice.”

(Prairie Profile is a weekly feature profiling interesting people in our region. We welcome suggestions from our readers. Call Regional Editor Eloise Ogden at 857-1944 or Managing Editor Kent Olson at 857-1939. Either can be reached at 1-800-735-3229. You also can send e-mail suggestions to kolson@minotdailynews.com.)