Since Hannah Vieira’s sophomore year of college at Central Connecticut State University, she has wanted to be a high school athletic trainer. This year, that dream came true, as she joined the Morgan community as the new athletic trainer for the school. For Vieira, the location, size, and community of the Morgan School was the perfect fit to start her athletic training career.
Vieira loves the quaint, high school setting compared to college, and she enjoys working with Morgan’s wide range of sports. “I like having to work with all different sports instead of being assigned to one team,” said Vieira, “and I love the high school setting compared to college, I feel like it’s a little more intimate.”
Morgan currently partners with Yale, which provides the school with athletic trainers. Vieira was hired through Yale in June to work specifically with the school. However, that is not her entire job. On Thursdays, and over the summer, when Vieira is not working at Morgan, she is working in a clinic with a surgeon doing pre-op.
“I do their pre-op appointments – going through the process of the surgery and medications,[and] discuss what physical therapy would look like for the patients. We also do follow-ups and post-ops with them as well,” said Vieira.
When Vieira isn’t working at the hospital, she comes to Morgan at 2:00 p.m., except on Thursdays and Sundays. On Saturdays, Vieira comes to the school from 8:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. During practices, Vieira stays in her office located next to the main stairwell and attends Morgan’s home games.
Vieira had always had a passion for physical therapy, but after shadowing both a physical therapist and an athletic trainer, she fell in love with the idea of athletic training.
Vieiras’ advisor in college helped push her toward the athletic training program by introducing her to Central Connecticut State University’s (CCSU’s) athletic trainer. Vieira got a taste of life as an athletic trainer by shadowing CCSU’s own athletic trainer during football practice over the summer. “We were at football practice over the summer,” said Vieira, “and he was just explaining all the heat illness precautions and being on the sideline, and that really made me fall in love with it.”
Prior to Vieiras arrival at Morgan, there have been two other athletic trainers since partnering with Yale that were frequently in the school. Both Liz Saunders and Yair Lazar were athletic trainers that Yale had provided the school. Yair Lazar had been with Morgan for a few years, then left to pursue his own career in the medical field. Liz Saunders was with Morgan almost full-time in 2023, then left Yale to pursue other opportunities. Yale continued to fulfill their contract with Morgan, sending people to the school to perform the athletic training role.
“Yale continued to fill in as much as they could with athletic training coverage,” said Meagan Sears, Morgan’s Athletic Director. “Yair was one of our trainers; he was the most frequent one we would have here with us. Then we had some bits and pieces staffed at our local EMT as well… and now we have Hannah, who we’re excited to have full-time.”
Meagan Sears had an opportunity to meet with Vieira last spring, where she showed Vieira around the school as well as talked about different expectations and services that an athletic trainer can provide. Having an athletic trainer at Morgan keeps the athletes healthy and safe at all times, expedites care immediately, provides day-to-day assessment monitoring, and plays a role in concussion management and return-to-play protocol.
“It’s helpful to have someone here,” said Sears. “I’m grateful for the support our community has given in continuing to understand the need and importance of an athletic trainer, and helping us provide that service at Morgan is great.”
