Sports Medicine / Athletic Training Room
Serving nearly 500 student-athletes in 19 intercollegiate programs at the University, of Hawai‘i Athletics Department is all in a days work for the UH athletic training staff.
Eric Okasaki, an athletic trainer at UH for over 30 years, heads the staff. He has seen the department grow in leaps and bounds. Okasaki was the athletic trainer for the 1980 Rainbow baseball team that advanced to the College World Series and has gone to the NCAA tournament with the Rainbow Wahine the past two seasons, while servicing all the other UH sports in between.
Okasaki is assisted by five veteran assistant athletic trainers in Jayson Goo, Tara Humphreys, Lyn Nakagawa, Renae Shigemura and Brian Wong. In addition, certified graduate assistants and athletic training students help in the overall operation of the athletic training facility.
The athletic training staff also includes a medical staff, comprised of team physician Dr. Andrew Nichols and a number of consultants from throughout the community. They attend most UH-hosted events to provide assistance to the athletic training staff.
The medical staff conducts general physicals and orthopedic examinations on each student-athlete to ensure they meet the minimum requirements necessary to compete in Division I athletics.
The athletic training staff is responsible for the care, prevention, evaluation and rehabilitation for each of the student-athletes in their respective athletic programs. All graduate students and full-time staff are certified by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) and travel with various athletics programs.
In the fall of 2004, the Makai Athletic Training Room, the main training room for the Athletics Department, received a $1 million renovation. The facility features treatment and taping areas, walk-in hot and cold therapy pools, and offices for the team physician and staff.
There are also three other ahtletic training rooms on the UH lower campus: the Mauka Athletic Training Room and facilities at the Les Murakami Stadium and Stan Sheriff Center.
Each are equipped with the latest technological resources on injury prevention and rehabilitation. Isokinetic and cardiovascular machines, electrical modalities and X-ray units are available.
The athletic training staff also works with the Kinesiology and Leisure Science (KLS) program in providing a clinical setting for athletic training students to work on their master’s degrees at the University and towards NATA certification.