There are some big shoes to fill (and a special cart to drive) after long-time Beaver Area athletic trainer Mr. Richard Burke retired at the end of the last school year.

Ms. Corina Sallinis is Beaver Area’s new athletic trainer—and ex officio driver of the Burke Mobile . . . though we probably should rechristen it the Salinas Mobile, the specially outfitted motorized cart used to ferry the trainer’s equipment (and sometimes transport an injured athlete) around campus.

Ms. Sallinis attended Hubbard High School in Chicago, Illinois. She then attended Northern Illinois University located in DeKalb, Illinois. She originally intended to become a Spanish translator, but that quickly changed when she strained a quad while running track and needed treatment for her injury.

That’s when she knew she wanted to be a Certified Athletic Trainer, which she has now been for three years.

“I was not aware that Athletic Training was a profession until college.”

Her high school did not have an athletic trainer when she attended there, so she wants students to understand that having an athletic trainer is a privilege, not a right.

Ms. Sallinis’s favorite part about her job is “helping others achieve their full potential, both physically and mentally.”

However, the most satisfying part of her job is “returning an athlete to full participation and watching them fulfill their passion for their individual sport.”

From her experience, Ms. Sallinis believes that athletes are often their own worst enemies: “The lack of self-confidence athletes bestow on the themselves,” frustrates her the most.

Ms. Sallinis also noted that people often misunderstand the trainer’s role.

“There are endless stereotypes that society has given the Athletic Training profession. However, there is so much for than meets the eye,” she explained.

These stereotypes, in her opinion, are some of the biggest misconceptions in her profession.

If there was one thing that she wishes her athletes would remember forever is that “where there is will, there is a way.”

Even if that way includes a ride on the Sallinis Mobile.