Longtime high school trainer was dedicated to athletes

As an athletic trainer for 23 years at the former Arlington High School, James Donald Sheehan helped many of its athletes recover from injuries.

One of his most famous was Doug Betters, who went on to play defensive end for the Miami Dolphins after college and played in two Super Bowls.

"I remember him carrying me around the field after practice," says Julie Sheehan Kent, now a family doctor practicing in Oshkosh, Wis.

Mr. Sheehan was one of the first certified athletic trainers in Illinois, who was inducted into the Illinois Athletic Trainers Association Hall of Fame in 1988.

His family is reflecting on his long and productive career, after he passed away Jan. 19 at his home in downstate Jacksonville. The former 25-year Arlington Heights resident was 81.

Mr. Sheehan began his career teaching history at Stewardson-Strasburg High School in central Illinois, where he met his future wife, Carol, who was completing her student teaching there.

A career change would take the couple to Shelbyville Junior High School, where Mr. Sheehan was principal, but he also began working as a trainer under the local football coach, Al Allen. Within three years, Allen took over the head coaching position at Kankakee High School, and Mr. Sheehan followed him.

"I remember my husband convinced the school to take casts of all the mouths of the football players, so we could make mouth guards for them," Carol Sheehan says. "We had them all in our basement, and we had to paint each one with five or six coats of latex, so they couldn't bite through them. We must have done 100 a year."

In 1963, they moved to Arlington High School, where many of the faculty hailed from central Illinois. Mr. Sheehan taught U.S. history classes during the day, but immediately after school he began taping and wrapping athletes in preparation for a game.

"He attended all of the football and basketball games, and the home gymnastics meets for girls and boys gymnastics," his wife says.

His daughter recalls the innovations Mr. Sheehan designed to help athletes recover from injuries, including a box that strengthened their twisted ankles.

"He was the be-all and the end-all," his daughter says. "If he said you played, you played; and if he said you didn't, you didn't."

Mr. Sheehan remained at Arlington until it closed in 1984, and he spent the next two years in administration at Forest View High School, before he and his wife returned to Jacksonville.

However, word of his skills had traveled. Officials from nearby Illinois College contacted Mr. Sheehan in need of an athletic trainer, and he helped establish the program there.

His legacy in promoting health and wellness has been handed down to his children. His daughter is a doctor, while his oldest son, Tim, teaches paramedics at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. The youngest son, Patrick, is a carpenter and lives in Crystal Lake. Mr. Sheehan also is survived by five grandchildren.

Services have been held.