Trotter Honored By Arkansas AATA

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – University of Arkansas athletic trainer Natalie Trotter was named the Arkansas Athletic Trainer of the Year, the organization recently announced.

Trotter is in her third year as an assistant athletic trainer for the Razorbacks covering women’s basketball, women’s golf, and supervises swimming and diving.

“I don’t wake up and do what I do every day to win awards or be recognized.  I do it because long ago I decided that I wanted to be more than “just” an athletic trainer,” Trotter said in her acceptance speech.  “When I leave this great state of Arkansas, when I am done with this association, my plan is to leave it better than I found it.  When my time is up in athletic training, it is my hope that I have been a positive impact on my profession.”

She currently serves as the District VI representative for the NATA Ethnic Diversity Advisory Committee (EDAC), Chair of the AATA Diversity Committee, and is a member of the AATA Young Professionals and Program committee. In these roles she has assisted in coordinating, planning and moderating sessions for annual state, district, and national meetings. Trotter has also been involved in various published and presented cases such as: Bilateral Pulmonary Emboli and Neuromuscular Hyperexcitability.

Trotter’s current professional service interest involves creating cultural competency within athletic training. Her goals are to promote understanding and awareness, to remove personal biases, and become more culturally competent as an organization. Her belief is that diversity is not only about who you are, is also about you work with.

One of Trotter’s greatest professional experiences and accomplishments, was serving as an athletic trainer for the International Sports Connection Basketball Exchange in Uganda, in 2012 and 2013. During this time she lectured local basketball athletes and coaches on prevention and treatment of injury, nutrition, and building speed, strength and agility.

Trotter is a 2006 graduate of Valdosta State University and earned her master’s degree at Troy University in 2008.