Congratulations to the Athletic Training Education Program of the University of Delaware--the 2016 winner of the Bill Cramer Professional Development Award. The annual $2,000.00 award was created following the death of Bill Cramer in 2007 to honor his passion and enthusiasm for athletic training education. Read More

Like many athletic trainers of his generation, Andy Carter, ATC, Senior Associate Athletic Trainer at College of William & Mary, received his first real exposure to the world of athletic training in high school, attending a Cramer student workshop. “Growing up, my family went to every high school football game, because my mother worked at the school (Magna Vista High school in Ridgeway, Va.). When I was in the eighth grade, the team needed a statistician and I was happy to fill that role. I arrived at the games early, and there was a student a few years older who had attended the Cramer camp at William & Mary. He taught me to tape ankles and a few other things, and I started helping him get the guys ready for the game.” Read More

When Paul Silvestri entered the University of Florida in the fall of 1996, his plan was to major in pre-med and become an orthopedic surgeon. He started on that path, confident of his career direction…until his older brother started looking into athletic training at the University of South Florida. Read More

Growing up in the Denver suburb of Arvada, Tandice Hawkey was an outstanding student who focused on academics. After graduating from high school in 1997, she was off to the University of Illinois as a pre-med major. That career path, however, didn’t turn out to be the right one for Tandi. I got a little discouraged during the physician shadowing experiences,” Tandi explains, “because the interaction between physicians and patients was so limited. I felt I would get more satisfaction developing long-term patient relationships. I wanted to stay in healthcare, but didn’t know how. Then I shadowed a family friend who was an athletic trainer, and discovered it was a profession that combined healthcare and sports. This excited me, since I grew up playing sports and in a sports family.” Read More

The athletic training community lost a dear friend on Sept. 4 with the passing of Paul DeMartinis, director of sales and marketing for Medco Sports Medicine. “Pauly D” was a huge proponent of athletic training and many in the field have lost a best friend. He would have turned 60 on Sept. 16. Read More

It goes without saying that every athletic trainer hopes to work with a winning team. But for the past eight years, Sandy Krum, ATC, has helped one loser after another—more than 300 of them—and he couldn’t be more delighted. Read More

Congratulations to Macauly Downing of Ft. Lewis, WA, the 2015 recipient of the Jack Cramer Scholarship. The $2,000 scholarship was established in 2006 by Cramer Products to honor the memory of Jack Cramer who believed in mentoring high school students interested in the profession of athletic training. Jack, son of company co-founder Frank Cramer, died in 2004 at the age of 86. The scholarship is awarded to a graduating high school senior planning to become an athletic trainer and work in a high school setting. Read More

Congratulations to the Athletic Training Education Program of Louisiana State University—the 2015 winner of the Bill Cramer Professional Development Award. The annual $2,000 award was created following the death of Bill Cramer in 2007 to honor his passion and enthusiasm for athletic training education. Read More

Benny Vaughn is a licensed massage therapist and ATC, and owner of Benny Vaughn Athletic Therapy Center in Fort Worth, TX. He grew up in Georgia, and attended the University of Florida on an athletic scholarship to run track. Benny became intrigued by the concept of massage therapy for athletes in 1972, after reading an article in Track and Field News that described the use of massage therapy in Europe to help runners with recovery and performance. He enrolled in a 10-month training program at the American Institute of Massage in Gainesville, Florida (now called the Florida School of Massage), and then completed a one-year apprenticeship. Read More

Sue Falsone’s journey as an athletic trainer has taken her on a path she couldn’t have anticipated. Sue grew up in Buffalo, N.Y. After high school, she earned a bachelor’s degree in physical therapy from Daemen College in Amhurst, N.Y., and became a Licensed Physical Therapist in 1996. She then took a position in North Carolina, became intrigued by the profession of athletic training, and applied to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. In August 2000, she completed a master’s degree in human movement, with a concentration in sports medicine. Read More