Membership 2026: Part of Something Bigger
Jonathan Reidy, LAT, ATC, OPE-C, joined NATA during his time as an athletic training student at Springfield College. He said his professors, Sue Guyer, DPE, LAT, ATC, Mary Barnum, EdD, ATC, and Brett Winston, PhD, LAT, ATC, were all involved and “perpetuated a culture of getting involved early and sticking around.” Influenced, Reidy said he raised his hand in a meeting and ended up serving as chair of the NATA Student Leadership Committee from 2015-16.
“It was a neat opportunity to get to know a lot of people in the profession early on, get to go to [the NATA Clinical Symposia & AT Expo], Joint Committee Meetings and participate in committee work at NATA,” he said.
During his time as SLC chair, Reidy saw the need to financially help athletic training students attend the NATA convention. This led to the creation of the committee’s Chuck Kimmel First-Time Attendee Award, which is named after NATA Past President Chuck Kimmel, who passed away in 2024. Not only was Kimmel president when SLC was formed in 2008, Reidy said Kimmel acted as a mentor to him and countless other students on SLC.
“I was about to graduate and was looking to move to North Carolina,” he said. “My senior year, for spring break, I went to visit, see a bunch of spots, where I wanted live. I was able to work in a trip to Appalachian State to have lunch with Chuck. … I actually got to tell him in person we were going to name the award after him.”
Following graduation and a move to North Carolina for work, Reidy said, “real life hit,” limiting his involvement with NATA. He moved back to Massachusetts in 2019 to take a role as an outreach coordinator with Shriner’s Children’s New England, where he is involved with the Pediatric Research and Sports Medicine Society. This move allowed him to once again give back to the profession.
In 2019, Reidy helped revive the Athletic Trainers of Massachusetts Secondary Schools Committee at the request of Winston, who was starting his term as ATOM’s president. Reidy’s role with Shriner’s involved working closely with secondary schools, so he felt he could help guide the committee. When he transitioned to a clinical role, he felt it was time to transition off, he said.
“It was just one of those things, for a lot of reasons, that had fallen by the wayside,” Reidy said. “But it’s obviously important, in every state, that the Secondary Schools Committee is actively advocating for those people because most of them don’t have time to do that. … I was able to get that started and bring some new members on. I did that for a couple of years to build it to the point where I could step back.”
Reidy praised current Chair Kristen Sasonoff Aguiar, MS, ATC, for her work advocating to high school athletic directors and the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. He said the committee has also increased representation of school districts geographically and school type to increase representation.
Reidy said it’s important to be a part of NATA.
“It’s very easy for everybody to say, ‘oh the NATA doesn’t do anything for me,’” he said. “If you don’t get involved, then of course it’s going to feel that way. There’s a lot of things that happened from the legislative side that people don’t see, and even if they weren’t [directly] a part of it, it’s still happening and that comes from our dues.”
He said he hopes that establishing the Chuck Kimmel First-Time Attendee Award will continue to have ripple effects for students generations from now.
While not every AT will someday have their name on an award, their contributions still make an impact.
“There’s going to be a lot of accomplishments that don’t have an award named after them,” he said. “That’s going to be the case for most NATA members. But there’s a lot of stuff that happens or will happen because of their dues. It’s important to remember that even if you’re not actively involved, you’re contributing to the overall success of the profession.”
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Take your career, knowledge and connections beyond with NATA. Join today or renew your membership by Dec. 31 to continue accessing the resources and community that keep athletic trainers at the forefront of health care.
