32 OUR COMMUNITY — 2023
HEALTH CARE IN DANVILLE
Former Danville Viking trainer Dale Hemker checks Danville football player Justin Moultrie after an injury during a game in 2017 . Hemker was the athletic trainer from 2000 to 2021 and is still a teacher at Danville and a trainer for Carle .
KEEPING ATHLETES HEALTHY
Athletic trainer helped Danville athletes for 21 years before shifting gears
BY MARVIN HOLMAN
From 2000 to 2021 , Dale Hemker was the man responsible for keeping the athletes of Danville High School healthy . While Hemker is not the athletics trainer for the school anymore , he is still very much a part of the community . Not only does he teach physical education and sports education at Danville High , he also works for Carle Sports Medicine .
“ Carle Sports Medicine and I cover events in different places all the time ” Hemker said . “ It is similar , but I am covering events as needed . I have been covering a lot of events in Georgetown , Bismarck-Henning / Rossville-Alvin , Salt
Fork and some camps at the University of Illinois . What we have is a group of athletic trainers that work to cover events to the area and they are given one specific school .”
Hemker started his journey right out of college and right into two positions in Danville .
“ I went to college for athletic training at Eastern Illinois and added teaching to it so I could possibly go to a high school to do teaching and training ,” Hemker said . “ My first thought was I was going to be an assistant trainer and then possibly go on and change positions . In going around to job fairs , I ran into Dave Stimac , who
32 OUR COMMUNITY — 2023