By: Katelyn Shaw

At public colleges and universities, the school works hard to provide their student-athletes with everything they need to be successful in their sport. At WVWC, we have one court with no air conditioning, one out-of-date football field, and only 4 athletic trainers with about 600 student-athletes.

John Zubal has worked at WVWC for 9 years as an athletic trainer. “I love coming to work and knowing that the people I provide service and care for appreciate me even at my advanced age; they still welcome me into their world because they know I can help make things better for them,” Zubal said. 

John Zubal has about 150 student-athletes across his 9 teams but is happy to help anyone who enters his office. “Everyone is important, regardless of whether you’re a member of the football program, dance team, or women’s basketball team; you are important, for instance, in women’s soccer. I didn’t know much about it, but if it’s important to those girls, it’s important to me”.

Now it does suck that the Aux gym has no AC, but we should be grateful that we even have an extra gym to practice in. Some colleges and universities only have one. “Does it get uncomfortable? Is it an inconvenience? Yeah, but we have the facility. It shouldn’t take away from what we’re trying to accomplish,” Zubal said.

We should take advantage of the facilities we do have instead of focusing on what WVWC doesn’t have. “I am going to take advantage of us having the opportunity to go to the AUX gym. It might slow you down, but it’s not going to stop you because the AUX gym doesn’t have air conditioning,” Zubal said.

What makes WVWC unique is that we have self-awareness, and everyone cares for each other. For instance, if someone here sees someone struggling 100% of the time, one of our students will help them. “All of our kids here, what makes them special and this place special is that they have self-awareness; it’s not uncommon to see someone holding the door for someone or if someone drops a stack of papers for someone to bend down and help them,” Zubal said.

This campus is special not because of our facilities. It’s special because of our students and because of our facility, especially our athletic trainer, John Zubal. “This is a unique campus in terms of its neighborliness and friendliness. People have each other’s back, and they accept each other, and that’s really cool because you don’t always have that,” Zubal said.

Photo by Katelyn Shaw