Friday, October 16, 2026
For Lynbrook High School athletic trainer Amanda O’Sullivan, providing adequate care for her student-athletes has often meant taking her work — and her training equipment — on the road with her.
Nearly all of Lynbrook’s athletic teams practice or compete away from the high school, which had housed O’Sullivan’s only permanent athletic training room. When athletes headed to Marion Street Elementary School — home to the district’s main stadium and fields used for football, soccer and lacrosse — O’Sullivan had to carry whatever equipment she could with her.
A recent donation from JAG Physical Therapy, a New Jersey-based rehabilitation company with several locations on Long Island, including nearby Valley Stream, has helped change that.
The company donated equipment to help Lynbrook create a secondary athletic training room at Marion Street, giving O’Sullivan a permanent space to evaluate and treat athletes at one of the district’s busiest off-site athletic locations. According to O’Sullivan, the equipment was donated over the summer, and the new training room was ready for use at the start of the fall football season.
“We didn’t think to create an off-site [training room],” the district’s athletic director, Joe Martillotti, said. “JAG wanted to donate a table and other stuff. We emptied a locker room for a training room. We were happy to accept the donation.”
O’Sullivan, who has served as the high school’s athletic trainer since 2017, has spent years traveling between the district’s athletic facilities. Volleyball is among the few sports based at the high school, while other teams primarily use Marion Street School and North and South middle schools for their athletic facilities.
O’Sullivan travels to those schools with a training bag, Martillotti said, but there is a limit to the equipment she can bring between sites.
“She does an amazing job,” he said. “It’s not an easy thing to manage without one dependable location.”
JAG donated a treatment table, modality cart, hydrocollator and accessories, as well as a TENS unit, which uses electrical stimulation to assist with treatment and recovery. The donated equipment is valued at approximately $4,000, according to JAG.
Taylor Rossillo, JAG Physical Therapy’s senior vice president of operations, said the equipment essentially creates a smaller version of a full athletic training room. The treatment table gives O’Sullivan a dedicated place to assess and treat athletes, while the cart can hold supplies for taping, first aid and preventative care. The hydrocollator provides heat that can help athletes warm up sore muscles before any activity.
“It ensures the athletes are still receiving top-level care they require from an athletic trainer when off-site and performing,” Rossillo said.
The donation also has a personal connection to Lynbrook. Rossillo said JAG President Rich Bodian raised his family in the community, and his four daughters attended Lynbrook High School, where they participated in athletics. His oldest daughter entered the high school in 2016, and his youngest graduated in 2024.
Through that connection, JAG became familiar with the logistical challenges O’Sullivan has been facing, moving between the high school and the district’s off-site athletic facilities.
Students sometimes have visited O’Sullivan at the high school before heading to practice, Rossillo said, but schedules do not always make that possible. Teams often head to an off-site field immediately after school, leaving little time for an athlete who needs to be evaluated, taped or treated beforehand.
At Marion Street, O’Sullivan can now provide those services where many athletes are already practicing and competing. The space allows her to prepare athletes before games and provide treatment when injuries occur, without relying on the high school’s main training room.
“Being able to have a satellite office at Marion Street field has been great,” O’Sullivan said. “It’s been able to add an efficiency to prepping our student-athletes for competition and respond to injuries that can happen. Most of our bigger events are held there, so it’s brought an ease to covering those events.”
The additional room can also relieve pressure on the high school’s existing facility. Athletes with later practices may be able to receive care at either location, while O’Sullivan will continue traveling to other district athletic sites when needed.
“This is a new luxury to have — a secondary site,” Martillotti said.
Rossillo said having equipment where athletes are competing can help with both injury treatment and prevention. High school athletes commonly deal with acute injuries, such as ankle and muscle sprains, as well as overuse injuries, growth-related issues and concussions.
Rossillo emphasized that athletic trainers also play an important role in injury prevention, from warming up tight muscles to taping ankles before athletes take the field.
The Lynbrook donation is JAG’s first such initiative on Long Island, according to Rossillo, though the company has supported athletic training programs at schools elsewhere in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Rossillo said JAG hopes to continue helping schools that have a demonstrated need for additional athletic training resources.
For Martillotti, the donation did more than supply Lynbrook with equipment, prompting the district to reconsider how it provides athletic training across a sports program spread among several facilities.
“If they hadn’t offered, we wouldn’t have thought to put up a secondary site,” he said. “Now, we probably should have had one up in the past.”
With O’Sullivan still traveling to teams at North and South middle schools and other locations, Martillotti said, the success of the Marion Street room could provide a model for additional spaces in the future.
“Anytime someone is willing to donate and spark a new idea for us,” he said, “we are happy to receive the donation.”
