One of the most important jobs behind the scenes for all the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley athletics is taking care of the athletes in between practices and games.

A player's best ability is his availability, and the athletic trainer for the Vaqueros is Shane Venteicher, who makes sure the players are healthy out on the field.

"That's what's cool of athletic training, every day is different. The guys can all come in, get treatment, taped, then they go out to practice, go to meetings, the there is more treatment time," Venteicher said.

Venteicher started at UTRGV in 2022 working with soccer, cross-country and track. All the while, knowing football would become his primary focus once the program got rolling.

"I got to keep working hard, hopefully make my way all the way to football. So I let Steven know, hey, I'm highly interested in football, coach Bush, I don't know if he had anyone set up in the sports medicine roll of it. Chase Conque threw my name to coach Bush and then here I am today working football," Venteicher said.

Just before the season, Venteicher and his staff moved into the new Vaqueros Performance Center.

The nearly 4,000 square-foot sports medicine room comes complete with 12 training tables, a hydrotherapy room and more, to help athletes recover and stay fresh.

"We try to be a very open and accepted facility, so if anyone is feeling major pain or a little hang nail, they can come here, and we will help them out and take care of them. Help where it's soreness or injury and rehab," Venteicher said.

On game days at home, the team starts at the performance center, then they head to the stadium where they make sure every player is ready to go.

"We start here, and we do our treatment here in the VPC, and then we will hop on buses, and we will go to the stadium and then all the taping we will do there that way they are comfortable on the way there," Venteicher said.

On the road, it's a different story. Hotel conference rooms turn into training rooms as Venteicher and his staff do whatever it takes to keep the Vaqueros loose and healthy.

"Coach Simmons, our director of football operations, does a great job and sets us up with a conference room, and they set it up like a mock training room. We have like 10 tables at the hotel set up for us and then when we have those later starting games. Saturday we do treatments in the morning with that, when the game starts the guys do meetings and all that, and then we will tape wherever is the venue we are playing," Venteicher said.

Of course, Venteicher will be at Saturday's game taking care of the Vaqueros so they can shine bright on the field.

Watch the video for the full story.