Left to Right: Kristy Johnson, Craig Switzler, Shannon Richard
Johnson, SOU Named CCC Athletic Training Staff of the Year
LA GRANDE, Ore. – Kristy Johnson, Shannon Richard and Craig Switzler of Southern Oregon University have been recognized as the Cascade Collegiate Conference Athletic Training Staff of the Year, the league office announced Friday.
This is the award’s first year of existence. The winners were selected based on a survey that was taken by CCC Student-Athlete Advisory Committee members, as well as conference coaches.
Johnson, SOU’s head athletic trainer in her fourth year, is the primary trainer for softball, volleyball and wrestling. Richard takes the lead on cross country, men’s basketball, track and field and women’s soccer, and Switzler is responsible for football and women’s basketball.
“SOU is fortunate to be a part of a conference where the athletic trainers at all institutions genuinely care about all of the student-athletes that come through their facilities,” Johnson said. “To be chosen by the coaches and athletes as the CCC Athletic Training Staff of the Year by this group is truly an honor.”
Among the staff’s biggest accomplishments this year, the SOU football team got through its NAIA championships season without a season-ending injury.
An SOU alum, Johnson returned to SOU in the fall of 2011 as an assistant athletic trainer and was promoted to head athletic trainer in June 2012. She served as head athletic trainer at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., from 2006-11, working with the baseball and women's soccer teams. She graduated from SOU with a degree in athletic training in 2001 and earned her master's degree in health in 2005. Originally from Yreka, Calif., she was an assistant trainer at SOU during the 2005-06 school year and has been certified by the National Athletic Training Association since 2001.
Johnson will be put forth as the CCC’s nominee for NAIA-ATA Athletic Trainer of the Year.
Richard arrived at SOU just prior to this school year after one year at Lindsey Wilson College (Ky.) as the athletic trainer for the football, swimming and wrestling teams. Prior to that, she spent four years in the same role at Shasta College in Redding, Calif., after earning a master’s in kinesiology from Chico State. She did her undergrad work at Fresno State, where she was also a member of the equestrian team.
Switzler made his return to SOU in the summer of 2014 following a seven-year stint at University of Utah as an athletic trainer. He was previously in Ashland for a year in 2007, immediately after completing graduate school at the University of Oregon, and at Utah worked with the baseball, football, softball, skiing, and swimming and diving teams. He also worked with the Utes dance departments and served as the Clinical Education Coordinator for the Athletic Training Education Program. He did his undergraduate schooling at Utah, and then got his master's degree in athletic training at Oregon. He is currently working on a doctorate in health sciences from A.T. Still University of Mesa, Ariz.