Reflections on the '25-'26 School Year, Part I: The EAP Activation

As the 2025-2026 school year wraps up, I’ve thought a lot about what has happened this year. Not exactly in a highlight reel kind of way, but in an honest, numbers and data-driven way. In athletic training and emergency management, the numbers tell the story better than anything else. 

Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to work as an administrator and athletic trainer at a local secondary school while pursuing my Master of Professional Studies in Emergency and Disaster Management at Georgetown University. I graduated in December, having completed a thesis that investigated the landscape of NCAA Division I medical event management practices. This research highlighted how inconsistent emergency protocols at the highest level of collegiate sports create a systemic, preventable risk and ultimately served as the foundation for the development of SidelineOps. 

And then, after an extended period of time behind my computer, I came back to the sideline.

When I look at what this year looked like in practice, I’m not only reminded of why this work matters, but why I love what I do so much. The next few posts will walk through the numbers I’ve crunched and why they matter.

EAP Activations: 1

One time this year, the Emergency Action Plan wasn’t just attached to the bright orange Gaotrade water cooler or in a binder. It was used. 

A suspected cervical spine injury during athletic competition. The kind of moment that every athletic trainer has trained for, but hopes to never face.

Three weeks before it happened, my co-AT and I had run a c-spine scenario drill in the same location with our key stakeholders. We practiced the mechanics, talked through our roles, and walked away feeling confident in our preparation. When the moment came, the clinical side held. We executed the c-spine management correctly. The athlete received appropriate care. The training worked.

But, as we continuously learn, the EAP is never just about the clinical response.

What the activation revealed was everything around the clinical piece — the communication infrastructure, the protocols for parents and bystanders, the coordination with non-medical staff. That's where the gaps were, and man, did they surface fast.

Security was on the wrong radio channel. My phone died as I was calling 911. A coach contacted parents before I could. Several parents attempted to intervene and provide care without my permission. On my field. In an active emergency.

None of those failures were catastrophic. The athlete was cared for. The outcome was okay. But every single one of those breakdowns represents a point in the chain where things could have gone significantly worse.

That's the thing about emergency response that you don't fully understand until you're immersed in it: the clinical training is only a fraction of the puzzle. An EAP has to account for every person on that field — the security guard on the wrong channel, the coach who wants to help, the parent who loves their kid and isn't going to stand there and do nothing. They're all part of the environment, whether they're in your plan or not.

In the weeks after the activation, I went back to the drawing board. I spoke with everyone involved. I addressed each breakdown we had identified in the first EAP activation since I took over as Head Athletic Trainer at my school. I updated the communication tree. I addressed the radio protocol with security. I reinforced with those providing crowd control that bystanders are not to approach unless I ask for them. And at the upcoming parent meeting, I plan to walk families through our emergency communication protocols directly, because an informed sideline is a safer sideline.

I made the plan better.

This process — activate, evaluate, improve — is what real EAP development looks like. It's not a document you write once and forget about. It's a living ecosystem.

If your program has never activated its EAP, I genuinely hope it stays that way. But ask yourself honestly: if it had to be activated tomorrow, what would break? Because something always does. The question is whether you've done enough work in advance so that the things that break are fixable in the moment, and the things that can't break, don't.

That's what SidelineOps is built to help you figure out before the moment arrives.

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Anna Sundy, MS, MPS, LAT, ATC, is the Owner and Founder of SidelineOps LLC, an emergency management and athletic training consulting practice based in North Carolina. She serves on the NCISAA Board of Advisors and the NCISAA Sports Medicine Advisory Committee.

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