Sweetwater Reporter

Athletic trainer Davis retiring after 50 years

BY RON HOWELL Sports Editor

After a 50-year career, Rick (Blades) Davis is retirng as an athletic trainer due to health reasons. He was at Sweetwater for 30 years and the last 10 have been at Blackwell, meaning that for the past 40 years he has served Nolan County as one of the most respected — as well as honored — high school athletic trainers in the state.

Davis became a licensed athletic trainer in Texas in 1972, a year after it became the first state to enact a law requiring athletic trainers to meet specific standards of education, profesionalism and ethics. Davis was

Davis then a student at University of Texas-Arlington, where he later earned a bachelor’s degree in history. He did his graduate work at what is now the University of North Texas and worked at schools in Grand Prairie, Arlington and Bridgeport before coming to Sweetwater to work for W.T. Stapler, who as the football coach led the school to its only state championship just three years after Davis was hired in 1982.

During that time he met his wife Patty. They’ve been married for almost 37 years and she is known to many as “Mrs. Blades.”

In the last 40 years he has gotten considerable statewide recognition. Davis was given the Eddie Wojecki Award in 1991 by the Southwest Trainers Association for his contributions. Five years later he was nominated by the Texas High School Coaches Assoiation (THSCA) as athletic trainer of the year, an honor that he would eventually win in 2006.

A year later, Davis was head trainer for the North team at the THSCA all-star game. He won the Everett Blackburn Memorial Award in 2012, which was created in recognition of outstanding and unselfish giving of time and talents to serve and improve others and the athletic training profession.

That year Davis took his talents to Blackwell, which has also had quite a bit of athletic success the past 10 years in all sports. He reluctantly made the decision to retire this year after he was diagnosed with cancer and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PCP), for which he is receiving treatment. Rick and Patty thank the public for all their support.

SPORTS

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2022-05-21T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-21T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://sweetwaterreporter.pressreader.com/article/281629603882633

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