Meet Erin Roberge, the Green Bay Packers' first full-time female athletic trainer

GREEN BAY, Wisc. ‒ The NFL has 22 full-time female athletic trainers, 21 of which were hired before Erin Roberge, but none of them are employed by the Green Bay Packers, which carries its own cachet.

Roberge said it's cool to be the team's first full-time female athletic trainer, but she understands the context of the honor.

"It just feels like doing my job every day, but it is a cool thing to be a part of and to be the first," she said. "Luckily, I wasn’t the first female intern (the Packers) had. There have been females around the building. I’m just the first one to be full time."

Roberge was also one of those interns. She just finished her third season with the Packers and now is, officially, an assistant athletic trainer.

Athletic trainers are sometimes depicted as tapers of ankles, but it is a complicated and demanding job, requiring skills in medicine, science, physiology, orthopedics and even a little psychology.

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"That’s kind of what you see on magazine covers and things like that, the typical athletic trainer, but you do treatments every day for people that have short-term injuries, long-term injuries like ACLs, surgeries they are coming back from, month-long rehabs or just things to get guys comfortable to practice that day," Roberge said. "You do evaluation of injuries after you coordinate with the doctor, the nutrition staff, strength conditioning staff, to make sure that player is getting everything they need to get better, to stay on the field. So, it entails a lot of different parts of the medical field."

Sometimes players must be encouraged to continue the patient, boring, arduous work to recover from injuries, although Roberge said professionals are easier to deal with than college players.

"It’s not so much like pulling teeth to get them to come in and get treatment, but sometimes you have to make it competitive or get on them a little bit and make sure they are coming in and staying on top of their stuff. It’s kind of a coaching aspect, too, I guess," she said.

Although she grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, Roberge was always a Packers fan, but horses were her first love, and her initial studies at the University of Wisconsin were in animal science. She was looking for hourly work when she saw a posting for a medical records job that seemed to have a close enough connection to the science she was studying and would provide experience in a related field.

One of her supervisors then told her the Badgers football team needed help with hydration at practices. That sounded interesting to her, too, and introduced her to athletic training.

"The athletic trainers that worked at Wisconsin were so good at their jobs. It was the first time I was exposed to seeing what athletic trainers do every day and getting to work around them," Roberge said. "That drew me into it, because I realized I loved the science behind the (profession) and always getting to work in sports and be part of the team."

In its tutorial on how to become an athletic trainer in the NFL, the University of Idaho says those positions are highly sought after because "the glitz and glamour of professional football plays a role, but they also offer an opportunity to work in some of the best facilities and on the cutting edge of the industry."

The athletic training program at Wisconsin is two years, after completing basic courses. Students learn to evaluate injuries, but also are instructed in the management side of the profession because some business is involved, including budgeting and running a training room. Students also do clinical rotations, working with different athletic teams at the university.

Football was Roberge's favorite sport and she did three of four rotations with the football team, although she spent some time with the rowing team as well. She connected with the Packers through one of the other trainers who interned in Green Bay and in January was added to the staff permanently.

Roberge, 24, received her undergraduate degree at Madison and completed her master's degree in exercise science with an emphasis in performance enhancement and injury prevention through Pennsylvania Western University. She's now working on her doctorate in athletic training from Moravian University.

The Packers' staff includes five full-time athletic trainers and three interns, two of whom also are female. There's a 10-year difference between Roberge and the next youngest full-time trainer.

"I learn something new almost every single day. I'm lucky to work with staff that’s great about sharing information and having a collaborative approach," she said.

The hours are long. The trainers accompany the team to all road games as well as working with them during the week, but Roberge said it's easy to come to work every day.

"I like getting to see every part of the process for an injury. You first run onto the field, do the initial impression, see that person every single day until they are back out of the field," she said. "For some of these guys, it can be a year or over to get them back to where they were before. I like that you get to be a part of all the ups and downs and really get a relationship with them. Then you get to celebrate with them when they go back out on the field."

It has been pointed out that the injury rate in the NFL is 100%, so there's plenty of work to do. The Packers medical staff is known for its conservative approach. It does not rush players back onto the field.

"Dr. (Patrick) McKenzie, our orthopedic doctor, does a really good job of protecting the players. I think a lot of them would play through things that they have, where we know it could cause them more long-term issues that maybe they don’t consider," Roberge said. "As they are coming up to that game, they want to play and be out there, and I understand that. I think he’s good at talking them down and saying, ‘Playing this week isn’t worth missing the next six games if you reinjure yourself or do something worse.’"

The first female athletic trainer in the NFL was Ariko Iso, who worked for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 2002 to 2011, but there's apparently something notable about being the first in Green Bay. The Packers' public affairs staff has fielded multiple requests for interviews, including from a national morning show.

For her part, Roberge understands this is just the next step in wherever her career is headed.

Athletic trainers can be found at every level of sports, high school through professional, and even working with the military.

"So you’ve got a lot of options of different paths to take. I definitely want to stay in the NFL. I really like working with professional athletes. I like the pace, all the challenges that come with it. I see myself being in the NFL for a while," she said.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Erin Roberge is Packers' first full-time female athletic trainer