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Employee Profile: Around
Campus Milestones Furman's Willie Miller: The NCAA's best-kept golf secret Furman
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Center of activity Baker directs busy Sports Medicine Department Elaine Baker is part mother, part coach, part healer . . . and all motivator. As director of Furman’s Sports Medicine Department, Baker and the other five athletic trainers on her staff have a penchant for pushing, encouraging and coaxing their patients into quick recoveries. "We really work them," says Baker, a Greenville native. "It doesn’t matter if they are the starting quarterback for the football team or someone who has come here on a workers’ compensation injury. We push both to get well, to restore them back to their lifestyle." During her 15 years at Furman, Baker has helped rehabilitate hundreds of stressed knees, turned ankles and pulled muscles. In the process, she’s probably gone through a mountain of athletic tape. And she’s seen it all. There was the time Baker found the teeth of one cheerleader lodged in the forehead of another after a head-on-head collision in practice. And then there was the day Sports Medicine was bombarded by students during the intramural football championships — one every 10 minutes, to be exact. "It can go from zero to 60 around here real fast," says Baker. A graduate of Winthrop College with a degree in health and physical education, Baker finished Furman in 1982 with a master’s in education with an emphasis in health and exercise science. While pursuing her advanced degree, Baker completed her athletic training internship at Furman by working with the football, soccer and basketball teams. She served as the head athletic trainer at North Greenville College before joining Furman full time as an assistant athletic trainer in 1985. At the time, the university’s athletic training facility was located in the Intercollegiate Athletics Building, in two rooms that now serve as the office for Gene Mullin, cross country and track coach. "There were just two of us (Baker and head trainer Bruce Getz), and we handled 20 sports back then, so we stayed busy," she says. In 1990, Furman began to research the possibility of opening its own sports medicine clinic after healthcare costs associated with rehabilitating its athletes began to skyrocket. Using the University of Virginia as a model, Furman converted 4,000 square feet in the basement of the Intercollegiate Athletics Building into what is now the Sportsmedicine Center. The space, which formerly housed the ROTC rifle range, had been unused for more than a decade. The center opened in September 1992. Baker was named associate director of sports medicine that year and succeeded Getz as director when he left Furman in 1995. Originally the Sportsmedicine Center was open to the campus community, caring for faculty, staff and students, while continuing to provide coverage to all the athletic teams. After three years, and at the urging of the Greenville orthopedic community, the center opened its doors to the public. "We have built an excellent reputation with our local physicians," says Baker. "Doctors want to send their patients here because they receive the personal, one-on-one attention they need to get better. We provide that type of quality care and we do not believe in assembly line medicine. We don’t shuffle people through our facility." Currently about 52 percent of the center’s patients come from off campus. On an average day, Sports Medicine will serve anywhere from 115 to 130 people. In addition, the staff provides consultation support to the nurses at Earle Infirmary each morning during the school year. |
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