If Injured, See Dakota: East Head Athletic Trainer Dakota Orlando has bonded with students while helping them through injuries

Scanning the field from the sidelines of the East vs. SM North football game in 2023, East Head Athletic Trainer Dakota Orlando saw a North player lying on the ground in pain and immediately raced over.

She shouted at then-senior Michael Muller to grab the vacuum splint bag — a gadget used to hold a broken bone in place — and the backpack filled with emergency medical equipment. 

Nearing the injured player, she instantly categorized the wound as a tib-fib and got to work aiding it.

Since being contracted by Shawnee Mission East from The University of Kansas Health System, Orlando has worked as East’s Head Athletic Trainer for eight years. Working from noon until 8:30 pm at the latest, Orlando assists athletes five days a week from her office in between the girls and boys locker rooms.

Three years earlier, then-sophomore Muller texted Orlando, asking if he could shadow her. And despite not knowing Muller well, Orlando agreed.

“He came to every football practice,” Orlando said. “He did the grunt work of being manager of football. And then he, after the football season ended, he just started to ask questions like, ‘How would I do this?’ He was just curious.” 

Muller followed Orlando’s after-school schedule: taping and bandaging injuries until practice, camping out in the golf cart, watching for injuries and sharing school gossip, giving football players ice baths after practice and leaving at eight-o’clock. 

“I got to meet so many people every single day and create a personal bond with them and be able to help them with their problems,” Muller said. “I miss the social part of working with Dakota.”

Michael soon learned of Orlando’s busy schedule jam-packed with taping football players’ ankles and icing sore muscles.”

East Senior Carter Rose sees Orlando every day to fulfill his football managerial duties as well as rehabilitate his elbow. Despite seeing dozens of other specialists, Rose notes that Orlando’s personality and positivity have been a major factor in his recovery.

“She’s not judgemental,” Rose said. “So you can go in there and just talk about your day and she’ll ask like, ‘What’s going on? How are you?’ She knows how to keep the conversation going so that you feel better.” 

With light-hearted conversations about how their sport has gone lately, hard classes and life outside of East such as family vacations and extracurriculars, Orlando engages in conversation with every student athlete she cares for. 

Orlando explained that a major part of the recovery process is having a relaxed conversation and explaining how the injury occurred.

“My two rules that I always say in here are, don’t lie to me and don’t waste my time,” Orlando said. “High schoolers feel like they can tell a white lie about how they got injured and get out of it, but that actually just prolongs the recovery.”

Shadows have followed Dakota even after Muller’s graduation. Paige Stanfield, an Alabama Women’s Softball commit, is Dakota’s newest assistant. 

“If you’re going to put in the time, and just be honest about why you’re interested in [sports medicine], I’ll give you a shot,” Orlando said. “I’ve had a lot of kids ask if they can do what Michael did. And I was like, ‘You just gotta start showing up.’ And then I never see them again, and they never come back around.”