Thomas “Tim” Kerin graduated from Westinghouse Memorial High School in Wilmerding, PA in 1965 and received his B.S. from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1969. After graduation, Tim began as the head athletic trainer and math instructor at Penn Hills High School in Pittsburgh. In 1972 Tim was awarded an M.S. in mathematics from Indiana University of PA and became the head athletic trainer and an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
He received an M.Ed. in Physiology of Exercise from Pittsburgh in 1976. Tim became the head athletic trainer at the University of Tennessee in 1977 and helped the football team achieve seven victories in 11 bowl appearances before his death in 1992.
Tim served on the NATA’s Program and Convention Committees from 1979 until 1991. He was SEATA’s Awards Committee Chair from 1988 until 1992. He served on the athletic training staffs of over two dozen local, regional and national athletic events and was extremely active in the community. In 1986 he was a founding member of Knoxville’s Metropolitan Drug Commission and served as its president from 1987 to 1989.
Tim received a Chancellor’s Citation from the University of Tennessee in 1990 and SEATA Award of Merit in 1991. The Tim Kerin Sports Medicine Facility at Tennessee was named in his honor in 1993. He was inducted into the NATA Hall of Fame in 1993. Tim was named the Eugene Smith/Mickey O’Brien College Athletic Trainer of the Year by the Tennessee Athletic Trainer’s Society in 1993 and inducted into their Hall of Fame in 1994. Tim was inducted into the Tennessee Sport Hall of Fame in 2001. One of the highest awards given by the NATA annually is the Tim Kerin Award. Tim was inducted into the SEATA Hall of Fame in 2007.