Franciscan Health Sports Medicine will provide athletic trainers for BCSC teams for the first time, although the trainers themselves will be familiar to student athletes.
School board members on Monday night finalized an agreement between BCSC and Francisan for $140,000 to provide the services of four athletic trainers from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2026.
The four athletic trainers who currently provide services to BCSC teams under the Columbus Regional Health umbrella — McKensie Hurt, Michaela Swafford, Kate Cockerham and Chance Newkirk — will continue on with the district under Franciscan Health. The four trainers will be evenly split between North and East, as is the case now.
This comes after CRH in June announced plans to end its sports medicine program and close an affiliated practice at NexusPark, citing a range of external pressures on the hospital system. That also meant CRH would not renew contracts that provided athletic trainers to BCSC and IU Columbus.
CRH officials said a range of “outside pressures” influenced the decision to end the program, including reductions in government funding, changes to reimbursement rates, “a lot of uncertainty just with government legislation and administration in general,” among other factors that have added further pressure to an already challenging landscape in the healthcare industry.
The contract CRH had with IU Columbus ended on Aug. 21, but the agreement with BCSC is still in effect until Sept. 30.
IU Columbus Vice Chancellor and Dean Reinhold Hill told The Republic last week that the college is currently in the midst of negotiating an agreement with a potential athletic trainer service provider, and therefore couldn’t provide any other information at this time.
BCSC administrators said they aren’t quite sure what part of the budget the $140,000 will come out of ahead of deliberations next month, but that it was a must to secure trainers while the fall sports season is in full swing.
CRH previously provided athletics trainers to the district at no cost.
The scope of services that will be provided is pretty much the same. BCSC officials said it was a priority to keep things as similar as possible, with essentially the only difference being the logo trainers will wear on their shirts.
BCSC’s current group of athletic trainers and the district’s athletic directors were well-involved in interviews with potential athletic trainer service providers and had a hand in the final recommendation to the school board, according to BCSC.
According to the agreement, athletic trainers will provide their services during daily after-school training room hours, all home IHSAA athletic events as needed, away varsity football games, and all IHSAA or conference tournaments hosted at North or East.
The trainers will travel to away IHSAA tournaments as scheduling availability allows, and will also provide summer training room hours as agreed upon by a given school and Franciscan Health.
The agreement goes on to include marketing and advertising obligations on behalf of BCSC, including featuring Franciscan Health’s logo on rosters distributed at events and on banners at athletic venues as agreed upon by the two parties.
