Heather Landry Shirley. Photo by Srijita Chattopadhyay/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services
Heather Landry Shirley to be recognized this summer in New Orleans
The National Athletic Trainers Association is honoring University of Mississippi professor Heather Landry Shirley with its 2024 Athletic Trainer Service Award for her outstanding service in the profession of athletic training.
The association will honor Shirley, assistant professor and program director of athletic training in the School of Applied Sciences, during the June 25-28, 2024 NATA Clinical Symposia and AT Expo in New Orleans.
“To have been selected for this award goes beyond what I could have ever imagined achievable in my career as an athletic trainer,” Shirley said. “It represents the hard work of all of those who have gone before me that made a path for me to be able to have this opportunity and it represents all of those who have yet to take that first step on that path.”
The award recognizes NATA members for their commitment to leadership, volunteer service, advocacy and professional activities at the local and state levels. Recipients have been involved in professional associations, community organizations, grassroots public relations efforts and service as volunteer athletic trainers.
“Dr. Shirley is hardworking, tenacious, thoughtful, curious and compassionate,” said Peter Grandjean, dean of the School of Applied Sciences. “She follows through on all of her commitments to the athletes, her colleagues, coaches and to her professional organizations.”
Grandjean credited Shirley – along with Corbit Franks, assistant professor and clinical education coordinator of athletic training – for the development of a new athletic training degree program at the university.
“Together, over the last three years, Drs. Shirley and Franks designed and steered our program to successful professional accreditation,” he said.
Shirley is dedicated to her profession, said Shannon Singletary, executive associate athletics director for internal operations in the Ole Miss athletics department.
“Heather has worked tirelessly to advance the profession of athletic training both nationally and for the state of Mississippi,” Singletary said. “Her service on the leadership board for the Mississippi Athletic Trainers’ Association as well as her mentorship and speaking at conferences to future or current athletic trainers from around the country are clear examples of this dedication.
“Her strengths are her personal sacrifices to ensure the profession excels as a leader among allied health professions and her dedication to ensure opportunities have been created for future athletic trainers.”
Shirley arrived at Ole Miss in 2002 as a graduate assistant athletics trainer. The athletics department hired her full time in 2004 and, by 2007, promoted her first to senior athletics trainer and then to assistant athletics director of sports medicine in 2015.
She served as the trainer for women’s basketball, men’s and women’s golf, rifle, softball and volleyball. In February 2021, she moved to academics in the School of Applied Sciences.
“Athletic trainers are health care professionals, and our profession is filled with thousands of phenomenal individuals who give their all every day and often go unnoticed for their tireless efforts,” she said. “The countless hours spent, the early mornings, the late nights, the hundreds or even thousands of injuries seen, the documentation required and even the ‘grunt’ work performed as a young professional just to earn your keep is often done behind the scenes and out of the spotlight of the sports world that we are so often associated with.
“Athletic training is so much more. It’s the relationships that you build with your colleagues, the trust and rapport you build with your patients and the faith you build in your given and learned abilities to be an effective health care provider over time.”
By Edwin Smith
