Florida State’s Nick Pappas Elected To NATA Hall Of Fame

Influential Athletic Trainer will be inducted Thursday, June 28 in St. Louis.

Tallahassee, FL – Florida State’s Coordinator of Insurance and Risk Management will be honored for a lifetime of influential work in the field of athletic training. Nick Pappas was elected to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Hall of Fame and will be inducted in a ceremony in St. Louis, Mo. Thursday, June 28. Currently, there are 35,000 athletic trainers in the NATA. Since the inception of the NATA Hall of Fame fifty years ago, only 277 men and women have achieved this honor. According to the NATA, the election into the non-profit group’s Hall of Fame is the highest award an athletic trainer can receive.

Pappas has accumulated diversified experience of over thirty-five years in the areas of athletic training and sports medicine. During this time he has been involved with the administration and development of and participated in numerous sports medicine and athletic training programs at the local, national and international levels. Included in this experience are stints as Head Athletic Trainer at Virginia Commonwealth University, Associate Athletic Trainer at Georgia Tech and Head Football Athletic Trainer at North Carolina State University.

He has worked with numerous athletes and teams that have participated in noteworthy sports events including several college football bowl games as well as NCAA national tournaments and conference championships in basketball, wrestling, track and cross-country. He served as the Head Athletic Trainer at the U.S. Olympic Trials for Tae-Kwon-Do in 1988 and was the host site athletic trainer at the U.S. Olympic Festival in 1987. He worked with the inaugural Tennessee Sportsfest in 1990 as a member of the medical committee and provided assistance with the North Carolina Special Olympics from 1986 through 1989. He has served as the medical chair for the Mid-South Rugby Union and is a past member of the medical staff of the United States Rugby Football Union. He also served as Head Athletic Trainer for the Nashville Kats of the Arena Football League for five years and was a member of the AFL Physician and Trainers Association serving as treasurer of the Executive Board.

In addition, he has been active with state and national associations working to improve the athletic training profession. He was elected as the first president of the Georgia Athletic Trainers Association after serving as chair of the Executive Committee authoring the organization’s charter constitution and bylaws. In Tennessee, Nick worked with several professional committees for the Tennessee Athletic Trainers Society. For nearly fourteen years Nick served as chair of Governmental Affairs and Strategic Planning and headed up the team representing professional interests in the Tennessee State Legislature. He had a major role in the revision and subsequent passage of the state athletic trainer practice act. Nick also made significant contributions in the reimbursement setting in Tennessee by putting together the strategy presentations and lobbying Blue Cross/Blue Shield which eventually led to the insurance giant changing its policy and procedures to recognize certified athletic trainers as allied healthcare providers in the State of Tennessee.

Pappas served two terms as President of the Tennessee Athletic Trainers Society and sat on the Executive Board of the Southeastern Athletic Trainers Association. As a member of the Executive Board of SEATA, Nick worked on and chaired several committees which included the major revision of the SEATA Constitution and By-Laws as well as developing the SEATA Mission and Vision Statements now in use. Upon his move to Florida in September 2005, he was elected to the Executive Board of the Athletic Trainers Association of Florida to serve as the Panhandle Area representative. In addition, the President and Executive Board of SEATA recently called on him to continue to provide support to their responsibilities and serve as SEATA Parliamentarian in 2006-2007.

His peers and the profession have recognized him on numerous occasions for his contributions to the field of athletic training and sports medicine. In 1992 he was named as the Clinical/Professional Athletic Trainer of the Year by the Tennessee Athletic Trainers Society. In 1996 he was one of fifteen individuals chosen as the first recipients of the National Athletic Trainers Association’s Athletic Trainer Service Award. In March 2000 the Southeastern Athletic Trainers Association honored him with selection for the District Award for his outstanding contributions and service with distinction to the profession. In 2006 he was inducted into the Tennessee Athletic Trainers Society Hall of Fame. Pappas was also honored as the 2007 recipient of the Presidents’ Award of Merit given by the Tennessee Athletic Trainers Society.

Pappas has written numerous articles and has been active as a speaker and consultant in various medical, allied health, law enforcement and athletic environments and has served on the national faculty of the United States Sports Academy. In addition to his duties on the athletic training staff at Florida State University he is an adjunct instructor in the athletic training curriculum.

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