Jack Ransone tapped for Olympic medical staff

SAN MARCOS – Jack Ransone, Ph.D., a professor in the Athletic Training Program of the Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, has been selected to be on the medical staff of the U.S. Track and Field Team during the 27th Olympiad in Athens, Greece, Aug. 13-29.

“This is one of my lifetime goals,” Ransone said. “It’s one of the things I’ve been working toward for many years, and it finally came to pass.

“That Athens is hosting it makes it special. They are going to actually have some of the track and field events in the original Olympic stadium,” he said. “The Olympics is something that happens only once every four years. It’s exciting. It’s on the world stage.”

Selections to the medical staff are conducted over a four-year period. Athletic trainers do two-week volunteer stints at various Olympic training centers around the country. Of these, 60 are selected to work either the World University Games or the Pan American Games. From this pool, the top 30 are invited to staff the Olympics. Ransone worked at the Pan American Games held last August in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

“I worked track and field at the Pan Am Games, and will at the Olympics as well,” Ransone said. “That’s one of the marquee sports at the Olympics.”

Ransone will leave for Europe at the end of July, participating in two weeks of Olympic relay tryouts where perspective athletes will compete on the European Gran Prix circuit. After that, he will travel to the Greek island of Crete, which will serve as a staging area for the athletes competing in Athens. Most of the athletes plan to arrive on the island a few weeks before the start of the Olympics, in order to get over any jet lag and to acclimatize to the extreme summer heat in the region.

Ransone earned his B.S. in athletic training from Texas State in 1982 with a secondary teaching certificate, and completed his doctorate in exercise physiology at the University of New Mexico. He served as the athletic training program director and athletic trainer for the football team at Oklahoma State University before returning to Texas State in the fall of 2003.