Trainers able to carry it all

In the middle of the Gillette Road Softball Complex on Saturday during the Section III finals was a blue and green trailer.

Though in the colors of the host school, Cicero-North Syracuse, the trailer served a greater purpose for the championship than school spirit.

The trailer was being used by Brian Buckland and Bill Brown, two C-NS athletic trainers on duty for the final games played on a day with temperatures hovering around 90-degrees.

"Things have been very good today," Buckland said. "Knock on wood there have been no major issues."

Buckland and Brown were on-site working for Section III, which oversaw Saturday's finals. The men said they've staffed the event the last several years, but never before with a complete complement of equipment.

In addition to water in the generator-powered trailer, the trainers had ice, oxygen, splints, an automated external defibrillator - everything they'd need in case of an emergency. Two training tables covered by a canopy were set up outside of the trailer.

In the past the men had to cover an event with less equipment, limited by what they could fit inside one of their cars or in a pickup truck.

"We can take care of anything that comes down the pike," Brown said.