Interview with JR

by Allison Grande

Tuesday March 7, 2006

Khachik Barkamian, Jr., known to most as JR, has been the athletic trainer at Sarah Lawrence since last February. Originally from Albany, N.Y., Barkamian participated in soccer, football and wrestling during high school. After graduating from college, he worked for a year at Sienna College and then worked as a graduate assistant at Niagara College before coming to Sarah Lawrence. Besides his responsibilities as the athletic trainer, Barkamian manages the equipment for the Sports Center and is responsible for the equipment cage workers. He also teaches a variety of physical education classes including karate, floor hockey, kickball and ice skating. According to Barkamian, his responsibilities include doing "a combination of a little bit of everything, just like a lot of people at this school." These days, Barkamian spends most of his free time in Albany making preparations for his August wedding. In a recent interview, Barkamian reflected on his brief time at Sarah Lawrence and shared his feelings about the Athletic Program here.

What exactly does an Athletic Trainer do?
Despite what many people believe, an athletic trainer is not like a personal trainer. It’s basically similar to a combination of a physical therapist and an EMT. We do a lot of the first aid stuff during games and practices, and we also do injury rehab and injury prevention for student athletes. Because of the licenser, I can help only the student athletes with the Athletic Training stuff, but if someone were to get hurt in the building who wasn’t a student-athlete, I can look them over and tell them that they either need to see a doctor or they just need to give [the injury] time and rest.

What’s your favorite part about being the athletic trainer at Sarah Lawrence?
The people here. Anywhere I’ve gone, it’s really been more about the people and the work atmosphere than the money. It’s a lot more of like a family atmosphere here, and everyone really tries to help everybody out. No one ever says "that’s not my job, that’s your job." The people I work with on a daily basis and even the students here are the best part of my job. It’s a lot of fun [to work here] because it’s really kind of a relaxed and informal atmosphere.

What do you think of the Sarah Lawrence Athletic Program in general?
I think athletics are done very well here. By the student athletes, [athletics are] taken seriously yet not too seriously. No one has that mentality that "I’m here to play basketball, and then I’ll just go to class in my spare time." It’s not a fast-paced now, now, now thing. Because of that, people are a lot more laid back. When an athlete is injured, there’s not a real high pressure from the coach saying, "I don’t care what’s going on [with the injury]; this kid needs to play tonight." I think it’s more of what college sports should be. I think it kind of gets back to the original intent of [sports] rather than what I saw when I was at low level Division I schools for the past four or five years where athletics were taken so seriously. [At those schools], coaches’ jobs depended on winning or losing, and if you had two bad seasons, you were done. The ultimate goal here is not the win-lose record; it’s about having fun and doing your best.

How has your experience been so far at Sarah Lawrence, and where do you see yourself in the future?
I’m very happy here. It’s a place that I can see myself working for a really long time. If you look around campus, a lot of the employees have been here a very long time, which for a lot of colleges is not very common. At a lot of places, they are there for a few years and then move on to bigger or better things. But here, there are a lot of inter-personal connections between everybody, and that is what really keeps people here for a long time. People could do a lot of other things that would make more money, but they stick around because it’s a very comfortable place here.