Texas State alumna named to athletic trainers advisory board

Posted by Jayme Blaschke
University News Service
April 9, 2013

Gov. Rick Perry has appointed Texas State University alumna Cathy Supak, ATC, LAT, of the Christus St. John Hospital Sports Medicine Center to the Texas Advisory Board of Athletic Trainers. Supak, a board-certified and licensed athletic trainer, is the primary athletic trainer for female athletics at Clear Brook High School in Friendswood.

The Advisory Board of Athletic Trainers is a Texas state board that serves as the licensing and regulatory authority of athletic trainers in Texas. As a board member, Supak will help carry out the board's purpose of protecting public health, safety, and welfare by establishing and enforcing qualifications and standards of practice for licensed athletic trainers. Supak is serving a six-year term that expires Jan. 2019.

"This appointment is a once in a lifetime honor and I am humbled by the duty it entails," Supak said. "It's something I wanted to do to give back to my peers."

Texas first licensed athletic trainers in 1971. Her father, John H. Poerner, was a member of the House of Representatives at the time and voted to pass the law into effect. Now, more than 40 years later, Supak serves on the board that the legislation created.
Supak is now in her 28th year as an athletic trainer. She has been at Christus St. John Hospital's athletic training program since 1993.

"Our responsibility is the prevention, assessment and care of emergency, acute and chronic athletic injuries," she said. "We see athletes from the moment of injury usually through all the treatment and get them back on the field from start to finish. That's the best part of the job. It's very rewarding."

Supak is a member of the National and Southwest Athletic Trainers' associations, a member and past president of the Greater Houston Athletic Trainers' Association and Texas State University Bobcat Athletic Trainers' Alumni Club, and a founding member and past board chair of the Texas State Athletic Trainers' Association. Supak received her bachelor's degree from Texas State.