NATA Hall of Fame

Sam Booth has long been an advocate of educational excellence. As a leader in District Four, she served on the NATA board during the transition to accredited curricula. During 11 years as head athletic trainer at Minnesota State University Moorhead Booth created a model athletic training program. She now works at Rochester General Hospital in New York.

Steve Bair has been a champion of accreditation, credentialing and legislation throughout his career. He leads by example, having served on the NATA board, Foundation board and Board of Certification, in addition to state and district offices. Bair, a member of the New Jersey Secondary School Coaches Association Hall of Fame, has worked for 20+ years at Overbrook (NJ) Senior High School.

Tom Abdenour has been in the National Basketball Association since 1987, tirelessly advocating for proper terminology and polishing the public image of athletic trainers. He has organized the NBATA/NATA student cadaver workshop for many years, and he is a founder of a guidance center for homeless or underprivileged men in Oakland, Cali. Abdenour is head athletic trainer for the Golden State Warriors.

Richard Ray serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Athletic Training, was co-chair of the NATA's Education Task Force and chaired the association's Nomenclature Task Force. In 2008 Ray directed NATA: Involve & Evolve! initiative to restructure NATA's volunteer processes. He is the dean for social sciences, professor of kinesiology and assistant athletic trainer at Hope College.

Rod Walters, a former NATA board member, has served as a product development consultant for Nike, Riddell, 3M Healthcare and United Pacific. He also has worked with Donjoy to successfully launch the Velocity, an off-the-shelf rigid ankle brace. He was an assistant athletic director at the University of South Carolina until 2007, when he launched his own consulting business.

As a college athlete, Tony Marek found his calling when injury sent him to Gary Craner's athletic training room. Naturally inclined to fix things, Marek took up the profession, eventually spending 13 years as head athletic trainer at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is in private practice and spends his weekends caring for professional bull riders. Marek was a two-term member of the NATA board.

Kathleen Laquale was the first female athletic trainer at Providence College and is half of the first father-daughter duo to work in athletic training. She also is a licensed dietary nutritionist. Laquale's work strongly influences her students at Bridgewater State College, where has been associate professor and the program director of the undergraduate and graduate curriculum programs.

Pete Carlon is a valued voice for the profession among college sports administration. Now the director of athletics at the University of Texas at Arlington, he has focused on integrity and leadership, serving on the NCAA Competitive Safeguards Committee, NCAA drug testing committee and the NATA board.

Jerry Bell helped develop the athletic training education program at the University of Illinois. He was instrumental in securing state regulation of athletic trainers in 1985 and licensure in 1995. Now a professor emeritus for the University of Illinois, Bell has 80+ presentations and 45 publications to his name, and he has traveled the world with the U.S. Swimming Sports Medicine Society.

Clint Thompson's focus has been on professional development. He was editor of the Journal of Athletic Training from 1972-85 and associate editor until 2003. His 31 years of Journal work was recognized by the creation of the annual Clint Thompson Award for Clinical Advancement. Now retired, he was the head athletic trainer at Northeast Missouri State University from 1985-2001.