Penn-Trafford trainer Larry Cooper to be honored by Korey Stringer Institute

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, April 27, 2018 | 6:51 PM

Penn-Trafford athletic trainer Larry Cooper is set to add another distinguished honor to his already lengthy resume.

Cooper will receive the Korey Stringer Institute (KSI) Lifesaving Service Award in New York City on May 10. The award is presented to those who have provided service aimed to improve policies and advocate for the adoption of policies to help reduce sudden death in sports.

“It is very humbling,” Cooper said. “I am grateful to be recognized for the work I have done over my career. I am just trying to make a difference, and someone noticed.”

The Korey Stringer Institute is a non-profit organization housed at the University of Connecticut that is dedicated to the prevention of sudden death in sports.

Cooper has worked with KSI in the past with the ATLAS Project. The Athletic Training Locations and Services (ATLAS) Project started off with humble beginnings: Cooper and a few colleagues met up at a conference on sports safety and began discussing a way of collecting data from secondary schools on athletic training.

“We sat down with no idea what to call it,” Cooper said. “But we stayed there until closing and didn't notice them cleaning up. The restaurant workers asked us to leave. We were drawing things on napkins. It is crazy how it happened.”

While the original idea was to collect data on subjects such as employment status and the number of full-time athletic trainers at schools, the ATLAS Project has grown as a way to boost student safety initiatives across the country. It is now used to provide information to each state's high school athletic associations, as a real-time database for athletic training services in schools and as a way to help provide data for legislative efforts for improved health care for high school athletes.

It also acts as a way for athletic trainers across the country to communicate.

“Say someone from Penn-Trafford goes to Delaware for a wrestling tournament, we can go on ATLAS and find the school and who the athletic trainer is with their email and phone number and contact them ahead of time,” Cooper said. “If the athlete gets injured, they'd be able to contact me. Once they are back at the school, I could give them proper treatment.

“It has really pushed student safety to a new degree.”

Cooper has received a number of awards throughout his career including the 2014 National Athletic Trainer's Association (NATA) Athletic Training Service Award, the 2015 Pennsylvania Athletic Trainers Society (PATS) Service Award and the 2016 NATA Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer Award. He was given the Most Valuable Athletic Trainer Award by Training & Conditioning Magazine in 2016 and inducted to the Pennsylvania Athletic Trainer's Society Hall of Fame in 2014.

“One of the things you always strive for is to do the best job you can and try to make a difference,” Cooper said. “Being recognized is maybe affirmation that I am making a difference. It motivates you to keep going.”

Cooper has been an athletic trainer as well as a health, physical education and sports medicine instructor at Penn-Trafford since 1993. In 2013, he helped Penn-Trafford become the first school in Pennsylvania to receive the NATA Safe Sports School Award.

“Larry Cooper is clearly an outstanding professional, mentor, teacher and colleague, and I believe one of the top in his profession,” Penn-Trafford athletic director Kerry Hetrick said. “I know of no one more deserving of this honor.”

Nathan Smith is a freelance writer.