Bill McDonald Inducted Into National Athletic Trainers' Hall of Fame
5/12/2004 12:00:00 AM | General
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Bill McDonald, longtime athletic trainer at The University of Alabama, has been elected to the National Athletic Trainers' Association Hall of Fame, it was announced today. Induction ceremonies will take place on June 18 at the NATA's 55th annual meeting and clinical symposia in Baltimore, Maryland.
McDonald joins the late Jim Goostree as Hall of Fame honorees from The University of Alabama.
"It is a great honor." McDonald said, "This award is especially meaningful to me since it is exactly 20 years ago that Jim Goostree entered the Hall of Fame."
"Bill is richly deserving of this honor," offered NATA Honors and Awards Chairman Tom Abdenour. "He dedicated his career to the betterment of the athletic training profession across the nation and has been an inspiration to untold young certified athletic trainers."
Bill has served on the NATA convention committee and as a representative at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. In 2000 he was presented with NATA's Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer Award and honored in 1999 with the creation of the athletic department's Bill McDonald Citizenship Award. Bill currently serves as Vice-President of the Alabama Board of Directors and a committee member of the NATA College and University Athletic Trainers.
McDonald, who enters his 18th season at Alabama this fall, is currently Alabama's Director of Sports Medicine.
McDonald earned his undergraduate (1967) and Masters degrees (1968) from Alabama and began his career as an athletic trainer and assistant basketball coach at Clarkston (Ga.) High School from 1968-71. He then took on a position as Consulting Trainer for the Cobb County School System and Athletic Trainer for Wheeler High School from 1971-72. He joined the athletic training staff at Georgia Tech in 1974 where he remained until returning to Alabama in 1987.
A native of Carbon Hill, McDonald was the basketball manager for Wimp Sanderson at Carbon Hill High School and later became a basketball student manager/trainer for Sanderson and Hayden Riley at Alabama.
He is married to the former Dian Cook, also of Carbon Hill, and the couple has two children, Scott who is Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Georgia Tech Men's Basketball, Volleyball and Track & Field teams and Bryan, a Doctor of Chiropractic in Tuscaloosa.
