One year ago this week, Tiana Barron took a seat in the athletic training room adjacent to Bulldog Arena at Turlock High School for the very first time, taking over for longtime trainer Mike Collins who departed to work for ATI Physical Therapy in the Blue Diamond Growers facility. Since then, Barron has hardly had a chance to catch her breath. Every day beginning in sixth period, dozens of student-athletes line up outside the facility. Almost every night, she is standing by at sporting events to tend to any injuries.
“It can get pretty crazy,” she jokingly admitted. “But I love what I do. I work with really great kids.”
Her passion is evident. Last Thursday, for example, Barron had student-athletes coming in and out of the facility for nearly two hours straight. Though she was working up a sweat, she had a smile on her face the entire time.
“I get my regulars in here, some of them who have had an injury for a while that we're just doing constant rehab with and ramping them back up. I get kids who need help uploading their physicals. The waits can be pretty long, but they’re patient. And getting to know the coaches, they know I’m new and they’ve been patient with me.”
It’s an experience that not every high student-athlete across the state is afforded. Turlock Unified School District is one of the few California public school districts that employ full-time athletic trainers. Ed Smith was Turlock High’s first athletic trainer from 1976 to 1979. Devon Foote then took over from 1979 to 1998. Collins followed serving from 1998 to 2023. Across town, Pitman High has employed Markus Turner since opening its doors in the fall of 2002.
When Barron, 27, applied for Collins’ position last winter and was eventually hired, she took pride in the fact that she was the first female athletic trainer in district history.
“It doesn't surprise me that I’m the first woman because I think athletic training is a male-dominated career, but I’m seeing a change,” she said. “Luckily, half of my cohort were women. I love those ladies and I'm still really close with all of them. But that’s nothing to say about the ones who were here before. I have really big shoes to fill, especially Mike’s, who served for 25 years. That’s amazing. I'm very lucky to be here filing his spot. I just hope I make as great of an impact as he did.”
Students often return smiles and laughs when walking into the training room to meet with Barron. They are gestures of appreciation for her work in getting them healthy and ready to compete, as well as the friendship she offers.
“I always like to make sure that they feel like they're being heard, especially with their injuries and just making sure that all their feelings are validated when they feel hurt and are feeling pressure to get back in action quickly because they are so passionate. ” Barron said. “I'm a strong believer that you really never know what's going on in their home life or even with how kids are treating them in school. I like to think that I am creating the athletic training room to be a welcoming environment for everybody.”
“She’s so good at her job,” said Mateo Valencia, a senior infielder on the baseball team and a kicker for the football squad. After getting roughed up in the Bulldogs’ quarterfinal playoff game against Oak Ridge in November, he spent a good amount of time in the room. “She really does care about all of us. She loves us.”
Barron understood the importance of athletic trainers early in her life. A 2015 graduate of Patterson High, she competed in volleyball, track, basketball and cheer. When she pursued a Bachelor’s of Science in Kinesiology with an emphasis in Exercise Science and Health Promotion at Humboldt State, she joined the women’s rugby team.
“I’ve had my fair share of injuries. I’ve had the ankle sprains, the jammed fingers, all that fun stuff. I was a ‘double (knee) braces’ player in basketball,” she said. “When I went to Humboldt State, I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I was really interested in the human body, and with all my experiences with injuries and recovery, so I decided to pursue a career in the field.”
After completing a kinesiology internship at the College of the Redwoods in nearby Eureka, where she was mentored by trainers Nate Kees and Lisa Martinez, Barron graduated from Humboldt State in 2019. She then completed graduate school at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, serving as an assistant trainer for the football, baseball and volleyball teams. She earned her Board of Certification for athletic training shortly after. After working at a sports medicine clinic in Utah alongside Jason Blackman — who Barron considers another great mentor — she was quick to jump on the opportunity to move back to California and work in Turlock, a place so close to her hometown.
“I went to Humboldt because I told myself I wanted to go as far away as possible for college,” she joked. “But we decided we wanted to come closer to home. Plus, the snow wasn’t quite for us. And so my dad actually sent the job opening to me, I applied, they called me back for an interview, they ended up like me and now I’m here. It’s a full circle moment.”
It can also be considered full-circle that Barron is now serving as a mentor herself, contributing lessons for aspiring health professionals at Turlock High’s HOSA – Future Health Professionals program, advised by Bernadette Galvan. Barron occasionally has students from the program volunteer to help her in the training room and at sporting events.
“It’s great to inspire future athletic trainers,” she said. “It's definitely a growing profession. There's a lot of athletic trainers that I've worked with that sparked that inspiration in me to pursue that career by giving me a positive experience in athletic training.
“I didn't figure out that I wanted to be an athletic trainer until my last semester in college, so if I can be of any help to them in their goals of pursuing careers in the medical field, I just try and give them my insight and give them the advice that would have helped me if I heard it a little bit earlier.”
It’s hard to ignore the fact that many of the volunteers tagging along with Barron are female.
“Like I said, it's a growing profession that a lot of girls are becoming interested in. I hope that I can continue to inspire our younger generation of girls and help them feel empowered, help them feel strong, help them feel confident. I want to show them that we can do the same thing men can, especially in sports.”
And despite being a Patterson Tiger at heart and traveling the country, she has become a welcomed member of the Turlock community.
“I love watching all the athletes in all the sports. I love seeing all of our Bulldogs succeed in their games, and I love being able to watch them grow. I'm really excited to see how the next few years go. It’ll be fun seeing some of the freshmen that are new this year and watch them develop and become young adults. It’s exciting to be here.”
