Athletic training faculty recognized for service and professional development

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Media Contact:
Kayley Spielbusch | Digital Communications Specialist | 918-561-5759 | [email protected]

For athletic trainers, learning does not stop once you earn your degree. 

Jennifer Volberding, the athletic training department chair and director, and Aric
Warren, athletic training professor at Oklahoma State University Center for Health
Sciences, can attest to this. 

The National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) recently honored them for their dedication to the profession and the education
of future practitioners. 

Volberding said she decided to pursue a career in athletic training after playing
sports and sustaining injuries in high school. She also witnessed her friend’s mother
sit for the Board of Certification exam.

“I saw it as a way to combine my passion for athletic populations and medicine. I
wanted to work with people who actively engaged in sports and help them get healthy,”
she said. 

Warren said he also pursued athletic training because of a love of sports and health
care, finding motivation in helping his patients and in the way the profession has
evolved. 

“Athletic training is now involved in corporate, industrial, hospital and other physician
practice settings. It’s an expansion of what we traditionally did with athletes. Now
we can help all kinds of people return to their daily lives and activities pain-free,”
he said. 

Volberding was recognized as a Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer by NATA, which
is given to members who demonstrate exceptional commitment to volunteer service, advocacy
and distinguished professional activities as an athletic trainer. 

Throughout her career, she has served on multiple committees and boards at the state,
district and national levels. She said she’s honored to be recognized for her service,
but credits her peers for helping her earn it. 

“It’s a testament to those who came before me, those I work with and those who are
coming after me. I learned early on from my mentors that giving back to the profession
is part of what makes you a good athletic trainer,” Volberding said. 

Warren received the Professional Development Excellence Award, given to an individual
who has made outstanding contributions in the area of professional development for
athletic trainers. 

Like Volberding, Warren has served on committees and boards at all different levels.
As part of his dedication to professional development, he has instructed and led 13
professional development courses at the state, district and national levels since
2017. 

In addition, he helped create and launch OSU’s Athletic Training-Sports Medicine ECHO in 2023, which connects athletic training and sports medicine experts with health
care professionals and athletic trainers in more rural and underserved areas to learn
best practices and improve student athlete health. It is the first athletic training-focused
Project ECHO line in the nation. 

“This award is very meaningful for me. The professional development side of athletic
training drives me — helping to advocate for the profession, educating future and
practicing clinicians and sharing knowledge to help people do their jobs better,”
Warren said. 

Warren, Volberding and the rest of the athletic training faculty at OSU-CHS encourage
students to continue to learn beyond graduation. That is one of the goals of programs
like Project ECHO, which brings participants in different health care disciplines together to learn
about important topics within athletic training and sports medicine. 

“It’s a never-ending process of growth and development,” Warren said. “We hope to
instill a philosophy of ‘I always want to continue to improve and do better for my
patients’ in our students.” 

Volberding said students interested in athletic training should approach it with an
open mind. 

“Go explore the profession. Be passionate about it and excited to be a health care
provider,” she said. ”If you want to live within the sports niche, you can, but there
are plenty of other spaces within athletic training where you can be successful and
positively impact your patients.”