The Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame recently announced the honorees for its Achievement Awards, and former ETSU Athletic Trainer Jerry “Doc” Robertson has received the Pat Summitt Lifetime Achievement Award.
Jerry Robertson began his athletic training career as a student athletic trainer at ETSU in 1960. In 1965, he returned to ETSU as the head athletic trainer and continued until 2003.
During this time, he developed and implemented one of the first undergraduate Athletic Training Education Programs in SEATA and served as both an Instructor and as the Curriculum Director since the inception of the program. He also developed and implemented the ETSU Graduate Assistant High School Outreach Athletic Training Program. Robertson has been recognized for his leadership and service at all levels.
At ETSU the Jerry Robertson Scholarship Award was established in his honor in 1981 and he was inducted into the ETSU Hall of Fame in 1983. He received the ETSU Distinguished Faculty Award in 1995, and in 2002, the Jerry Robertson BucSports Athletic Medicine Center was named in his honor. He was honored by the Tennessee Athletic Trainers’ Society with the Gene Smith/Mickey O’Brien College Athletic Trainer of the Year Award in 1990 and was inducted into the TATS Hall of Fame in 1995.
In 1994, he received the Fellowship of Christian Athletes Julian Crocker Influence Award. He earned the NATA 25 Year Award in 1990 and SEATA provided him with its highest award, the Award of Merit in 1994. Robertson was recognized with the NATA Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer Award in 1997.
Other top awardees include Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry, Belmont Women’s Basketball, Alysha Clark, Joan Cronan, Anastasia Hayes, Memphis Men’s Basketball, Ja Morant, Tennessee Titans, the Tennessee Six and Brady White.
The honors will be formally presented as part of a statewide television special the weekend of June 26.