As our winter sports team’s seasons are rapidly approaching, we would like to welcome a new member to the Jacket Nation.

Ben Lucas has recently been named Mount Vernon High School’s new head athletic trainer, and is bringing a lot of valuable experience with him. Prior to accepting the position here, Lucas was the head athletic trainer of Denison University, an NCAA Division III school that competes in the Ohio Athletic Conference. Going back further, he worked at Tiffin University, an NCAA Division II school that competes in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference, as their football team’s head athletic trainer.

While these experiences are valuable enough by themself, he brings a little bit more to our athletic programs. He played soccer at Springboro High School in Dayton, Ohio, and continued his athletic career at the University of Findlay, another member of the Great Midwest Athletic Conference.

Lucas became an athletic trainer because he wanted to help student-athletes however he could.

“I wanted to eliminate that dark cloud around injuries for athletes. People get hurt, because when playing sports, someone always gets hurt. I just wanted to be that athletic trainer, somebody that can provide knowledge to athletes so that it’s not a dark scary cloud and they know what to do since they know what’s going on.”

Despite all of his experience working for college athletic departments, Lucas is still intrigued by our facilities and the potential they hold.

“I really enjoy the facilities. I enjoy having two athletic training rooms, which is great. The facilities here are honestly better than other places I’ve worked. For a high school to have access to something like this is really cool.” 

From the Jacket Journal, welcome to the Mount Vernon athletics family.