TATS Provides Assistance To Louisiana Flood Victims

The TATS Executive Board has unanimously decided to provide assistance to athletic trainers who were affected by the recent flooding in Louisiana.  This assistance is being provided in conjunction with SEATA as part of an initiative to "adopt" specific athletic trainers throughout Louisiana and ensure that both their personal and professional needs are able to be met.  This adoption program has evaluated the needs of these ATs and created a two-tier system to meet both personal and professional.  

• Tier 1 ATs are those that have suffered significant personal AND professional losses.  These ATs will be provided a minimum of $1000 from state organizations.
• Tier 2 ATs are those that have suffered either personal OR professional losses and those losses are not quite as significant.  These ATs will be provided a minimum of $500 from state organizations. 

TATS will be providing $1000 to Mike Rodrigues and $500 to Randy Gonzalez as part of the adoption program.  You can read more about Mike's story here and Randy's story here.

Also, there are additional opportunities for TATS Members to reach out to these and other ATs in need.  We would encourage members to visit the LATA's GoFundMe page and contribute to provide additional funds for those in need.  There may be some additional opportunities to get involved with sending physical items in the near future, so stay tuned for more details.

UPDATE: (10/11/2016) The GoFundMe organized by the LATA is now closed, but you can reach out to the LATA Leadership if you still have an interest in providing aid to these flooding victims.

A Message From Tim Hoskins

Dear TATS Membership,

It is with regret that I announce my resignation from the TATS Executive Board as the Middle Tennessee Representative.  My wife and I will be relocating to the New England area.  Both of us will be advancing our careers as well as embarking on this new journey in life.

Please know that I have thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed the opportunity to serve with y'all (LOL) to further the profession of Athletic Training. I am proud of our collective achievements and the significant progress we have made for our profession. I am particularly honored to have served as a past chair of governmental affairs and most recently the middle TN rep. I am truly grateful for the opportunities that have been given to me. As a board and as individuals, you are all tremendously talented, and I feel lucky to have volunteered by your side these past fourteen years.  I would encourage each of you to continue to promote the profession.  Our communities stand to only benefit from our services. 

Please know that I will always champion the profession of Athletic Training and remain available to the organization via telephone or email. I look forward to seeing your many future accomplishments. May God bless each and every one of you as he has blessed me and my family. Not a good bye, but, a see you later...

Sincerest regards,

Tim Hoskins, LAT

Volunteers

TATS is looking for members who have an interesting in volunteering to be a part of our working committees.  TATS committees are the primary way that members can be influential in the athletic training profession.  If you have an interesting in getting involved in our professional organization, take a moment to complete the form below with any comments you may like to add.

President's Blog - Summer 2015

I hope everyone is having a good spring sports season, it seems like we just go started and within a few short weeks we will see new state champions crowned. Since the Annual meeting we have had a few exceptional projects that have produced better than expected outcomes.

Hill day was a tremendous success this year as we were able to meet and discuss Athletic training topics with 6 elected officials. We had a great turn out of members but also 14 MTSU students gave up a morning to come to the Hill. We had many productive meetings discussing current legislation in committee related to sudden cardiac death, as well as thanking legislators for their support of our previous concussion legislation. Keep an eye out also for SB985 / HB32 Sudden Cardiac Arrest Prevention Act. This new legislation Creates the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Prevention Act. Similar to the Concussion law, it Requires governing authorities engaged in school youth athletic activities and activity fee charging organizations engaged in community-based youth athletic activities to adopt programs to train and educate coaches, school administrators, youth athletes, and their parents or guardians of the nature, risk, and symptoms of sudden cardiac arrest.

Moving forward we are excited about ideas to improve our presence on the Hill. Please I urge to be on the look out for ways to help us with our Governmental Affairs initiatives.

We have also secured a booth at the 2015 EMS / Education Conference in Murfreesboro on July 8 - 10, 2015. We have worked out an arrangement with the TNEMSEA organizers to allow us to present AT related info to their constituents and we will host them at our annual meeting in January.

The annual TIAAA/AD conference was a great success this year with us making new contacts and getting requests for information to pass along to School Administrations to try to create new ATC positions within the Secondary school setting. I have been requested to attend a school system board meeting to present on this topic from the meeting.

TATS is proud to be partnering with the University of Tennessee Sports Medicine Department to host their annual Spring Sports Medicine Symposium. The symposium is a FREE EBP CEU event on May 4th, 2015 from 8am - Noon. Topics include Hip Arthroscopy, Concussion, and the TATS East Regional Meeting. The event will be held in the Anderson Training Center on UT's campus. Registration for the event has now closed due to such high demand. Registrants will be receiving further details about the conference via email from Robb Duncanson. You can learn more on the TATS website. We are looking forward to this being a great event.

Executive Board Elections will be starting soon too. Please exercise your right and vote! We, as the TATS EB, would love to see record or near record turn out for this year's elections!

The TATS Facebook page has reached 250 members! we will be trying to keep you more informed about the Middle and West regional meetings through social media as the confirm the dates and times

I hope everyone gets an opportunity to recharge over the summer and hope to see you in St Louis!

- Scott