Profile: Regis Visconti

We all know Regis, whether it be from playing sports, taking his class, or just seeing him around campus. Regis Visconti has been our athletic trainer since 2015, and has been a teacher here for only one year, teaching the greatest elective class in the history of electives.

I had the chance to sit down and talk with Regis about his thoughts on his job here, what he does on a daily basis, and how he deals with our athletes. Regis explained to me that the frustrating part about his job is the hours.

Out of all the high schools in the state, Regis is one of three solo athletic trainers. For example, North Allegheny has 5 athletic trainers, literally 5 of Regis.

Since Regis is a solo athletic trainer, this makes it hard for him to cover all events, and the fact that we barely have any facilities on campus doesn’t help either.

However, he usually has a couple grad students who help him out each college semester. This semester Jimmy and Anton were here with us, one a grad student at Pitt, and the other at Duquesne.

These two helped Regis with “power hour” and injury treatment . Regis explained to me that on a daily basis he usually arrives at 10am, works out, eats, showers, teaches class at 12:30, (the best elective ever of course), then completes “Power hour” as he likes to call it, and just covers all practices and games until everyone is done for the day.

“Power hour” as Regis explained is the time before practice when he puts athletes through treatment, taping, stretching, and gets everyone ready to go. When asked, Regis explained that he needed to attend all PIAA athletic events for Central football, basketball, baseball, wrestling volleyball, lacrosse, and soccer.

Regis does not need to attend cross country or swimming meets, but will treat athletes if needed. Following this, I asked what Regis’ favorite sport here at Central was.

He replied “Every sport presents something different, so I do not have a favorite. Each season brings something new and unique.”

I then asked Regis what it would be like being an athletic trainer at the collegiate level vs here at Central. He replied, “At the collegiate level you are only assigned to 1-2 teams. For example, you would only be assigned to work with the football team or only the basketball team. Occasionally you help out with cross country or smaller sports. The recovery process is also a lot more hands-on, with more time and space to work with athletes than here.”

Visconti explained to me that here at Central, he has so many different sports to cover and so many different athletes to train, making it difficult for him to have 1 on 1 recovery time with athletes.

Regis said that he often needs to send athletes to UPMC specialists to recover simply because he does not have the time to do it himself. Lastly, I asked Regis a few things about himself.

Regis explained to me that his favorite food is Italian foods, and his favorite healthy food is fresh fruit salad. I also asked Regis who his closest friend is here at Central, and he told me it was Mr. Macurak because he gained his love for athletic training from him.