As the Greensboro Gargoyles take to the ice this fall, two UNC Greensboro students will be taking care of their health and their image. The interns will spend the season with the Triad’s professional, minor league ice hockey team, putting their academic pursuits into practice.
Keeping the Gargoyles in the Game
Paige Scaman, a second-year graduate student in the Master’s in Athletic Training program, is doing a clinical rotation with the Gargoyles, working with the team’s preceptor, or athletic trainer. An athlete herself, Scaman, a native of Jacksonville, Ill., has always wanted a career in sports. Her undergraduate major at Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo., was exercise science.
She chose UNCG’s School of Health and Human Sciences for graduate school for its breadth of opportunities, as well as the connections to athletic programs at higher-level schools and with semi-pro teams. She has not been disappointed.
“When I learned that the Gargoyles were coming to Greensboro, that sparked my interest because I hope to work at a college or professional level after I graduate,” Scanman says. “I reached out to our clinical coordinator, Lauren Griffin, and we used UNCG’s connections to contact the Gargoyles’ athletic trainer and set up my clinical rotation.”
Now, during the weeks of home games, Scaman spends many hours a day working with the athletes on injury prevention, first aid, rehab plans, and emergency care. The preceptor oversees her work, giving feedback on where she might improve.
Scaman likes learning the treatment and rehab techniques specific to hockey. The assignment has also enabled her to attend professional development conferences and build connections with people of similar interests. Other members of her UNCG cohort are doing rotations at other semi-pro teams, high-level universities, and with the military.
After graduation next spring, she hopes to land a job doing the same kind of work or find an internship, perhaps with the NFL. Through Scaman’s master’s studies and work with the Gargoyles, she has found her calling.
Shutterbug on Ice
Meanwhile, undergraduate student Jacob Sterling is volunteering with the Gargoyles as a photographer. He already earned a bachelor’s degree in a pre-med track, but realized photography was his first love. He enrolled in UNCG’s College of Visual and Performing Arts for another degree, this time in photography, and says he’s never been happier. “I wouldn’t change anything.”
Sterling’s internship with the Gargoyles as a team photographer is purely voluntary. He landed it just by making a cold call and offering his services.
“What I don’t get paid in financials or course credit, I gain in life experience and access,” he says. Soon, his work spoke for itself.
He started by shooting small things like their NHL team affiliate announcement and jersey reveal. Now that the season is underway, he covers games and practices and has earned access to get out on the ice or enter the locker room to take photographs.
“They give me a list of what they need,” he says. “I also get to be outside and talk to fans.”
He hears lots of stories about how happy people are to come to the games with their kids just as they did with their parents and grandparents for Greensboro’s previous hockey teams, the Monarchs and the Generals.
He shoots in digital format but also uses traditional film, which he then develops and edits. Time in the darkroom is like meditation to him. “I can put my headphones in and play music while I work.”
Sterling finds that UNCG has allowed him to follow his own path.
“UNCG gives you the space to be yourself, provides you the opportunities to creatively be who you are and be with like-minded individuals,” he says. “People here are collaborative rather than competitive. That takes so much pressure off.”
One of the best parts for Sterling is knowing the pictures he takes of athletes in their prime will be around longer than he is, creating a legacy for them and him.
“They can show the photos to their great-grandchildren,” he says.
Story by Mary Daily
Photography by Jacob Sterling
