FORT DAVIS — On July 16, longtime Fort Davis resident Charles Prude was recognized by the Texas State Athletic Trainers Association by being inducted in the association’s Hall Of Honor after decades of dedication to the field of sports medicine and athletic training.
Charles David Prude, a native of West Texas, graduated from Fort Davis High School before attending Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State University) to pursue tertiary education in athletic training. As a Bobcat, he worked with the NCAA Division II National Championship football team.
After graduating with a B.S. in athletic training in 1983, Charles worked as an LAT/ATC at public high schools in Del Rio and Fort Stockton, Texas. He and his family moved back to Fort Davis where he pursued master’s degrees at Sul Ross State University in Alpine. He earned an M.Ed. in public school administration in 1998 and an M.Ed. in kinesiology and exercise science in 2002.
He served as the head athletic trainer and an academic lecturer at SRSU till 2015 when he retired from public schools. Throughout his 46-year career, in athletic training and into his retirement, Prude was an active member of SWATA/NATA, was named as distinguished alumnus from Southwest Texas State University, American Southwest Conference Athletic Training Staff Of The Year, treated countless high school and NCAA athletes, and mentored numerous student athletic trainers in their own pursuit of knowledge and careers.
Outside of the training room, he has periodically volunteered his time with high school and college rodeo athletes and professional bull riders and athletes in the rural communities where full time Athletic Trainers were not available in the school system.
According to their website, The Texas State Athletic Trainers Association “was created to own, operate, and maintain an association exclusive to the promotion, enhancement, and advancement of the athletic training profession and of the association’s members. The TSATA is ‘by Texas athletic trainers, about Texas athletic trainers, and for Texas athletic trainers’ and strives to serve as the voice of athletic trainers in Texas.”
Charles Prude was nominated by his peers and colleagues as well-deserved recognition for his years in service to young athletes, Texas public schools, and aspiring student trainers throughout West and Southwest Texas and was honored in a ceremony in Frisco, Texas.