The Ohio Athletic Trainer's Association (OATA), founded in 1984, ensures that athletes, at any level, receive immediate, professional and quality health care. Members of the OATA are highly qualified allied health professionals who are educated and experienced in dealing with the health care needs of the physically active, whether they are a high school student-athlete, a "weekend warrior," an active mother, or an Olympic hopeful. Membership has risen steadily to over 2,000 members.
For the past three-plus decades, the association has housed all of its memorabilia at Ohio University in Athens. Recently, however, the University need to reclaim some space that the OATA was using to store some artifacts. Enter Paul Sparling, a 2022 inductee into the OATA Hall of Fame and also a member of the executive board as the pro/at-large representative. The long-time head athletic trainer of the Cincinnati Bengals had an idea. His alma mater, Wilmington College, felt like the perfect choice to display some OATA history that would otherwise be in storage. Sparling, a 1981 graduate of WC, was one of the first athletic training students in the program started by Roger Tewksbury. Samantha Chrismer, archives committee chairperson, first came up with the idea of Wilmington as a destination to display OATA materials. Additionally, OATA President Katie LaRue-Martin liked WC as a choice due to its facilities, athletic training program and current president, Dr. Trevor Bates, having a background in athletic training.
"I saw an opportunity to help both the OATA as well as bring something to the Wilmington College campus to help showcase the long history of Athletic Training in Ohio and at the College," said Sparling. "While other schools are also interested and considering putting together such a display, Wilmington had the advantage of alumni and administrative support, an excellent location quickly identified and the funding of the cases addressed, which permitted this to be the first."
What better place to display OATA material than the home of Wilmington's nationally recognized athletic training program - the Center for Sport Sciences (CSS). Opened in August of 2015, the building is home to four commercial medical offices: Beacon Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, Chiropractic Care of Cincinnati, CMH Regional Health System's imaging and sports medicine center, and Drayer Physical Therapy Institute. Upon a visit to the building, the OATA archives committee settled on a blank space right outside both the main CSS classroom used for athletic training courses as well as the main athletic training room.
"We quickly identified a perfect location for the display at the CSS, just off the main entrance hallway, down the corridor that leads to the athletic training room and the offices for the athletic training academic program," said Sparling. "It can be seen by students of the College as well as by the general public who are visiting the building for the private physician and therapy offices."
Once the location was chosen and approved by College administrators, Sparling, who graduated from WC in 1981 and is a member of the Athletics Hall of Fame, generously donated the display cases. The case displays a multitude of items from the OATA archives as well as some memorabilia personal to Sparling's career as an athletic trainer.
"In addition to the archive materials that the OATA already had in their possession, I have made it a mission to try to find other historical items that would provide a glimpse into what athletic training was like years ago," said Sparling. "My only regret is that there is so much more I would love to display but the cases are full already!"
