Long hours of practice, plenty of repetition, planning and skill — sandwiched around hitting the books — are a New Iberian’s contribution to LSU’s rise to the brink of a national championship to be decided Jan. 7.

The New Iberia Senior High graduate has not made a tackle or thrown a block. Still, Rebecca Lahasky has reveled in each victory and despaired in both agonizing three-overtime losses with the Tigers on the sidelines as LSU marched to the Bowl Championship Series title game in the Louisiana Superdome.

Lahasky, 20, is one of the student athletic trainers at home and away. Like LSU fans around the country, she was on Cloud Nine after the Tigers won the SEC title game with a 21-14 come-from-behind victory over Tennessee.

Advertisement

“I just liked seeing the faces on the guys (players). I liked seeing our hard work and their hard work pay off,” Lahasky said before the student/athletes and athletic trainers went into holiday break.

Lahasky is part of a large team for all the school’s sports that includes the program director, a kinesiology instructor, director of athletic training, three senior associate athletic trainers, four associate athletic trainers, 10 certified graduate assistants and 23 undergraduate students. The sophomore was one of eight students chosen after her freshman year to continue in the prestigious three-year program. She was on a bus back from Atlanta, site of the SEC title game, with the rest of the staff, team managers and cheerleaders when the passengers got updates via ESPN and cellphones of Pittsburgh’s upset of West Virginia, opening the door a crack for the Tigers to get into the ‘Dome.

“We were cheering and screaming on the bus during the game,” she said. “We knew four things had to happen and two of them had. So we were halfway there.”

The rest is history. Polls fell right and the BCS folks matched LSU vs. Ohio State.

She has been through the ups and downs, the aches and the breaks, with the Tigers. The team is 11-2 going into its showdown against the 11-1 Buckeyes.

“It’s been an amazing experience during rehab and treatment on athletes, and being there when we’re No. 1, dropping, and going back to No. 2,” she said.

Through it all, Lahasky kept a workmanlike approach with the big, strong and fast players that hobble to the sideline in pain.

It was that kind of regular season for the Tigers, who lost key players to injuries.

“We can’t really have a soft part for them,” she said. “I usually tell them to suck it up, treat them and everything.”

Being on the sideline has been a thrill, she said.

“But I know I have a job to do down there,” Lahasky said. “I can’t get in the actual game. I can’t get excited like the players ... but being on the field is awesome.”

Jack Marruci, LSU’s director of athletic training, said, “They probably have the worst seat in the house. People think we have the best, but they’re working the whole game.”

Lahasky, who played soccer in elementary school, middle school and high school, is majoring in kinesiology and concentrating on athletic training.

“I just got interested in it from watching the trainer when I was in high school soccer and everything; watching how they benefited us and the players on our team. I wanted to do the same for other athletes.”

Marruci, for one, is pleased she is there.

“You know we get a lot of good kids from New Iberia — the Mark Romans, the Corey Raymonds. It seems like we get a lot of quality kids from that area,” he said. “I tell you what, you ought to be proud, the people that you put out of that area.”

Lahasky has met the challenge of balancing academics and athletic training, he said.

“From her working last year to this year, she’s probably become one of the most improved athletic trainers we’ve seen one year to the next year,” Marruci said. “She’s a very mature person. She’s handled the job with a lot of poise. I think she has managed her time well with athletes and fellow students.”

Lahasky and the team’s other athletic trainers have gone along for the long ride that ends Jan. 7.

“I always tell these kids never to take it for granted that, one, they’re working here at LSU at one of the best programs in the country and, second, that LSU is playing for a national championship,” Marruci said.

That fact is not lost on Lahasky or her parents, Dr. Robert Lahasky and his wife, Mati Tebele Lahasky.

“If they get a national championship ring, she’ll get a national championship ring, Dr. Lahasky, an LSU graduate who has practiced family medicine 22 years in New Iberia, said.

“It looks like a super year for her.”

The physician appreciates the hands-on experience that goes with the job.

“The practical experience of working on injured athletes on that level can’t be replaced,” he said.

His daughter’s routine at football practice includes preparing water, taping ankles, treating nagging injuries, stretching and rotating, she said.

Each trainer does one or more of those tasks each day on a rotating basis, she said.

She has her druthers on a favorite part of the routine.

“Preparing water would not be my favorite. Treatments and taping are interesting. You learn as you go,” she said. “They want you to be able to learn, so it’s a three-year program. Everybody will experience football one year. Then they try to give you an upper body sport, a lower body sport and a sport of the opposite sex. This year I’m doing football. I’m not mad about it.”

Thirteen LSU graduates are working in professional sports as athletic trainers for football, women’s basketball and baseball teams. Lahasky, the student athletic trainer, would like to be in their number one day, or hook up with a college program.

But, first, she’ll change graduate schools. That’s a common practice for the two years following graduation, Marruci said.

“Usually, if they graduate from here, we encourage them to go to a different school,” he said, then noted Penn State, Florida State, Michigan, Louisville, Houston and Mississippi State have fine athletic-training programs.

“I’m not real sure about specifics,” Lahasky said. “But hopefully I’ll get a job as a collegiate athletic trainer, maybe even a professional trainer. Really, whatever’s open. I would take any position.”

Marruci said Lahasky’s chances of staying in the profession after her studies are “very good. After this year’s performance, I think she has a great opportunity.”

Right now, she is treating injured players. However, she is forbidden from talking about specific injuries, she said.

“We’ve had stuff from knee injuries — ACL tears — to shoulder injuries. I don’t know if one ever sticks out,” she said.

The Tigers will be in better shape, she said.

“With the time off, I think we will be able to have a healthy team come the national championship game,” Lahasky said.

Of multi-award winning defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey, who has battled injuries most of the season, she said, “He’s being strong and hanging in there.”

About the big game coming up, she said, without hesitation, “I think our guys will have the win.”

One way or another, she’ll have a hand in it.