LIVING THE DREAM
10/22/2019 3:31:00 PM | General
Baylor Athletic Trainer Ranked Among World’s Best Spartan Racers
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
Like a lot of the student-athletes who she helps rehabilitate and recover from injuries as an athletic trainer with Baylor soccer, Kristen Bartiss dreamed of becoming a professional athlete.
She just didn't know it would be as an elite obstacle-course runner.
"I played basketball, softball and soccer and was a competitive snowboarder. Soccer was my main sport," she said. "Ever since I was a little kid, I always said I wanted to be a professional athlete and thought it would be in soccer. I did play college soccer for a year, and then I decided with my parents' help that a professional soccer career was just not realistic."
Still very much a novice in running and Spartan racing, the 28-year-old Bartiss won the Elite division at last year's Spartan World Championship in Lake Tahoe, Calif., and was the 43rd-ranked female Spartan racer overall in the world.
"There are different divisions, but I run with the professionals," said Bartiss, a native of Kinnelon, N.J., who is in her fifth year at Baylor. "The other girls that I'm competing against do this for a living, they don't have jobs. Or if they do, sometimes they just work part-time. But, this is what they do. So, for me to step to the line, every single time I'm always the underdog. And I love that, because I feel like that translates to our soccer team. A lot of times, we're the underdog, and it's like, 'Just go for it!'''
Coming from a family where her dad's a doctor, her mom's a nurse and "everyone is pretty much involved" in the medical field, Bartiss thought combining medicine and athletics would be a perfect fit for her. She just didn't know athletic trainers were professionals, "I just thought it was some random guy that volunteered to help out."
Once she did some research, Kristen found out that Ithaca College in New York had one of the top programs in the country. The added bonuses were the hills, waterfalls, snow and hiking. "It was beautiful," she said.
Leaving her New Jersey and New York roots, Kristen did her graduate studies at Utah State in Logan, Utah. In addition to working on a master's degree in health and human performance with a concentration in sports medicine, she served as a trainer with soccer, football and men's and women's tennis.
"They don't have an athletic training program like we do here at Baylor, so I didn't have any students helping me with just basic things like water, things that I take for granted," Kristen said. "Having to do four sports, I was very busy, but I believe it made me who I am today. I learned a ton working completely different sports. It was just an awesome experience."
Logan was actually where Kristen's running career began, but it started out as just a way to exercise and took a rather scary turn when she was running to work one morning and was hit by a car. The driver was texting and didn't notice as Kristen hit the hood of her car, slid over loose gravel in a construction area of the road and slammed her knee into a storm drain.
"My adrenaline was pumping, and I didn't even know what had happened. I just knew my knee was really hurting," Kristen said.
Hobbling and crawling a half-mile to the hospital where the Utah State team physician was working, she found out that her ACL wasn't torn but that her femoral condyles "were smashed like a Styrofoam cup."
Taking her immediately to surgery, the doctor cleaned out the knee, but couldn't tell if the pieces were bone, rock or glass. His diagnosis was that she wouldn't be able to run at an intense pace and "you're definitely not going to be the high-caliber athlete you were before."
That was all the motivation she needed. Starting her training on an underwater treadmill, Kristen ran in the Cache Valley Half-Marathon seven months post-surgery and finished first.
"Nobody can tell me that I can't do something," she said. "I just felt like God was with me, and He told me, 'You're going to sign up for this.' When I told my parents, they were like, 'Wait, what? You ran 13.1 miles? No way! From that point on, I was like, 'Maybe I can be good at this.'''
After finishing her master's at Utah State, Kristen worked that summer for the Jersey Express, a Player Development League men's soccer team in the Newark, N.J., area. When she heard about an entry-level opening at Baylor, she decided to apply, not thinking she had a shot.
"I don't have much experience, I just graduated, who is this random girl from New Jersey?" she said. "To be honest, I didn't think I had a shot at all. But, once I got here and had my on-campus interview, I just fell in love with it immediately. I felt like God had called me to this moment, like this is where I'm meant to be."
Soccer coach Paul Jobson said Kristen's experience that summer with the PDL soccer team was one of the things that helped her land the Baylor job.
"I knew she had some difficult challenges and had to probably be a strong person to be able to handle that," Jobson said. "And, obviously, as I've gotten to know her, that is definitely what she is. She does a great job of being able to give the care the girls need, but she's not going to baby them. She played soccer and has had a ton of injuries, so she knows what they're going through. A lot of trainers just don't have that kind of experience."
Baseball trainer Josh Ogden, who had previously worked with soccer, helped with the transition and has mentored Kristen along the way.
"He was right there with me for the first two months. That was really helpful, because I still needed to learn the ropes and just basic things like getting to know the girls' names," she said. "Josh was an amazing resource for me, and everybody on the staff just welcomed me with open arms. That's what I love most about this staff is that even though I don't have family here, Baylor has become my family, especially this staff and the team. We say 'Faith, Family, Futbol,' and I believe that's true."
Since Waco doesn't have a Spartan training facility, Kristen said she just "wings it."
"They have you carry 50-pound sandbags uphill, you crawl under barbed wire, jump over fire, jump over walls, you do these crazy 40 feet in the air cargo nets, rope climbs, throw spears," she said. "The girls will see me bear crawling with a tire behind my back, and they're like, 'You're crazy?!' It is, but I love it. People will ask me what I do in my spare time. I play in mud and crawl under barbed wire."
Part of her motivation in the Spartan racing is to "be a positive influence and a good mentor for the student-athletes," she said.
"I think it gives me a lot more credibility and I can relate to them more if I'm like, 'Hey, I know what it's like to have to grind it out. I know what it's like to be injured,''' she said. "I hold them to a certain standard. If I can't run the fitness test, how can I tell you to do it? I'm trying to be a good role model for them."
Saying Baylor is the "best thing that's ever happened to me," Kristen can't see herself ever working at another university. The goal of working for a pro team or maybe the U.S. Women's National team is still there, "but I have no intentions of leaving here anytime soon. I love this school, and I love everyone that works here."
Baylor Bear Insider
Like a lot of the student-athletes who she helps rehabilitate and recover from injuries as an athletic trainer with Baylor soccer, Kristen Bartiss dreamed of becoming a professional athlete.
She just didn't know it would be as an elite obstacle-course runner.
"I played basketball, softball and soccer and was a competitive snowboarder. Soccer was my main sport," she said. "Ever since I was a little kid, I always said I wanted to be a professional athlete and thought it would be in soccer. I did play college soccer for a year, and then I decided with my parents' help that a professional soccer career was just not realistic."
Still very much a novice in running and Spartan racing, the 28-year-old Bartiss won the Elite division at last year's Spartan World Championship in Lake Tahoe, Calif., and was the 43rd-ranked female Spartan racer overall in the world.
"There are different divisions, but I run with the professionals," said Bartiss, a native of Kinnelon, N.J., who is in her fifth year at Baylor. "The other girls that I'm competing against do this for a living, they don't have jobs. Or if they do, sometimes they just work part-time. But, this is what they do. So, for me to step to the line, every single time I'm always the underdog. And I love that, because I feel like that translates to our soccer team. A lot of times, we're the underdog, and it's like, 'Just go for it!'''
Coming from a family where her dad's a doctor, her mom's a nurse and "everyone is pretty much involved" in the medical field, Bartiss thought combining medicine and athletics would be a perfect fit for her. She just didn't know athletic trainers were professionals, "I just thought it was some random guy that volunteered to help out."
Once she did some research, Kristen found out that Ithaca College in New York had one of the top programs in the country. The added bonuses were the hills, waterfalls, snow and hiking. "It was beautiful," she said.
Leaving her New Jersey and New York roots, Kristen did her graduate studies at Utah State in Logan, Utah. In addition to working on a master's degree in health and human performance with a concentration in sports medicine, she served as a trainer with soccer, football and men's and women's tennis.
"They don't have an athletic training program like we do here at Baylor, so I didn't have any students helping me with just basic things like water, things that I take for granted," Kristen said. "Having to do four sports, I was very busy, but I believe it made me who I am today. I learned a ton working completely different sports. It was just an awesome experience."
Logan was actually where Kristen's running career began, but it started out as just a way to exercise and took a rather scary turn when she was running to work one morning and was hit by a car. The driver was texting and didn't notice as Kristen hit the hood of her car, slid over loose gravel in a construction area of the road and slammed her knee into a storm drain.
"My adrenaline was pumping, and I didn't even know what had happened. I just knew my knee was really hurting," Kristen said.
Hobbling and crawling a half-mile to the hospital where the Utah State team physician was working, she found out that her ACL wasn't torn but that her femoral condyles "were smashed like a Styrofoam cup."
Taking her immediately to surgery, the doctor cleaned out the knee, but couldn't tell if the pieces were bone, rock or glass. His diagnosis was that she wouldn't be able to run at an intense pace and "you're definitely not going to be the high-caliber athlete you were before."
That was all the motivation she needed. Starting her training on an underwater treadmill, Kristen ran in the Cache Valley Half-Marathon seven months post-surgery and finished first."Nobody can tell me that I can't do something," she said. "I just felt like God was with me, and He told me, 'You're going to sign up for this.' When I told my parents, they were like, 'Wait, what? You ran 13.1 miles? No way! From that point on, I was like, 'Maybe I can be good at this.'''
After finishing her master's at Utah State, Kristen worked that summer for the Jersey Express, a Player Development League men's soccer team in the Newark, N.J., area. When she heard about an entry-level opening at Baylor, she decided to apply, not thinking she had a shot.
"I don't have much experience, I just graduated, who is this random girl from New Jersey?" she said. "To be honest, I didn't think I had a shot at all. But, once I got here and had my on-campus interview, I just fell in love with it immediately. I felt like God had called me to this moment, like this is where I'm meant to be."
Soccer coach Paul Jobson said Kristen's experience that summer with the PDL soccer team was one of the things that helped her land the Baylor job.
"I knew she had some difficult challenges and had to probably be a strong person to be able to handle that," Jobson said. "And, obviously, as I've gotten to know her, that is definitely what she is. She does a great job of being able to give the care the girls need, but she's not going to baby them. She played soccer and has had a ton of injuries, so she knows what they're going through. A lot of trainers just don't have that kind of experience."
Baseball trainer Josh Ogden, who had previously worked with soccer, helped with the transition and has mentored Kristen along the way.
"He was right there with me for the first two months. That was really helpful, because I still needed to learn the ropes and just basic things like getting to know the girls' names," she said. "Josh was an amazing resource for me, and everybody on the staff just welcomed me with open arms. That's what I love most about this staff is that even though I don't have family here, Baylor has become my family, especially this staff and the team. We say 'Faith, Family, Futbol,' and I believe that's true."
Since Waco doesn't have a Spartan training facility, Kristen said she just "wings it."
"They have you carry 50-pound sandbags uphill, you crawl under barbed wire, jump over fire, jump over walls, you do these crazy 40 feet in the air cargo nets, rope climbs, throw spears," she said. "The girls will see me bear crawling with a tire behind my back, and they're like, 'You're crazy?!' It is, but I love it. People will ask me what I do in my spare time. I play in mud and crawl under barbed wire."
Part of her motivation in the Spartan racing is to "be a positive influence and a good mentor for the student-athletes," she said.
"I think it gives me a lot more credibility and I can relate to them more if I'm like, 'Hey, I know what it's like to have to grind it out. I know what it's like to be injured,''' she said. "I hold them to a certain standard. If I can't run the fitness test, how can I tell you to do it? I'm trying to be a good role model for them."
Saying Baylor is the "best thing that's ever happened to me," Kristen can't see herself ever working at another university. The goal of working for a pro team or maybe the U.S. Women's National team is still there, "but I have no intentions of leaving here anytime soon. I love this school, and I love everyone that works here."
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