Four students from the Boise State Athletic Training Program won the Northwest Athletic Trainers Association (NWATA) Koto-Steele Student Quiz Bowl at the 2019 NWATA Annual Meeting in Spokane, Washington on March 28-31.
The NWATA is the 10th district of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA), which is comprised of athletic trainers and athletic training (AT) associations from Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. NWATA works to help disseminate information that is critical to athletic trainers and AT associations, and to educate the public about AT as a health profession that is working in different venues with active people of all ages.
Boise State was well represented this year with 14 AT students and faculty member, Gen Ludwig, clinical assistant professor for the Department of Kinesiology, in attendance. Students who attended were able to participate in the daylong student forum of presentations and activities that culminates with the regional Koto-Steele Student Quiz Bowl.
The Koto-Steele Student Quiz Bowl is an annual jeopardy style quiz that hosts teams from all accredited AT programs in the five states of the 10th district. Teams are asked to answer questions surrounding the AT profession such as, injury prevention/diagnosis/physical rehabilitation, therapeutic modalities, healthcare administration, acute and emergency care, evidence based practice and statistics, general medical conditions and pharmacology, mental health, functional anatomy, and exercise physiology. Teams are awarded points for not only correct answers, but also response time.
Students who represented Boise State in the quiz bowl this year were Taylor Harding, Alix Giese, Noah DeLisle, all students of the undergraduate Athletic Training Program, and Morgan Fowler, Master of Athletic Training (MAT) Student. After two initial rounds, team Boise State maintained a lead into the final round and aced the final jeopardy question, thus winning the NWATA Koto-Steele Student Quiz Bowl. The team was awarded a $2,000 travel stipend to attend the NATA Annual Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada in June, 24-27 and represent the NWATA and Boise State in the national quiz bowl against nine other regional teams from around the country.
“The Department of Kinesiology faculty, alum who have participated in the quiz bowl in past years, and myself are so proud of these AT students and their dedication towards the profession,” said Dave Hammons, director of the AT Program at Boise State. “Special thanks to Gen Ludwig and other Kinesiology faculty for preparing and coaching these students in all different areas of content and knowledge as their hard work is apparent in this event.”
The AT Program at Boise State is currently transitioning from an undergraduate program to a master’s level program. The final cohort of undergraduate AT students is set to graduate this May 2019. The MAT program accepted its first cohort of students in the summer of 2018. The MAT program is a rigorous and intense program that places specific requirements and demands on the students enrolled. An objective of this program is to prepare graduates to enter a variety of employment settings and to render care to a wide spectrum of individuals engaged in physical activity.
“In our program we have used the quiz bowl as a fun activity to get students together,” said Hammons. “The thing I am most proud of as director of this program is that we won during our year of transitioning the undergraduate AT degree to the master’s level. The transition year is so unique and somewhat scary due to having a senior level undergraduate cohort and a first year master’s level cohort. Both take completely different classes and we have taken steps to help mesh the two different cohorts together. But, the quiz bowl is a student driven event and the different levels of programs came together and won the event this year.”
Learn more about NWATA, the NATA annual conference, and the Master of Athletic Training Program at Boise State.