CHS alumna Kelley Seekins named NAIA Athletic Trainer of the Year

By Ryan Clark
CHS Communications Director

College of Health Sciences alumna Kelley Seekins, MS, LAT, ATC, has been named the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics’ Athletic Trainer of the Year for 2025-26, recognizing her contributions to collegiate sports medicine.

Seekins, who earned a Master of Science in Athletic Training from UK in 2012, serves as director of sports medicine and senior woman leader at Tennessee Wesleyan University in Athens, Tenn. She is the first athletic trainer from Tennessee Wesleyan to receive the NAIA’s national award.

The NAIA announced its national awards this fall as part of National Awards Day.

“It is truly an honor to be named the NAIA Athletic Trainer of the Year,” Seekins said. “To be recognized at that level, let alone be nominated, was quite a surprise! None of us get into the sports medicine field for recognition. We’re used to being behind the scenes. So being the one distinguished for your efforts is always a little surreal.”

Seekins began her 17th season at Tennessee Wesleyan in 2026-27 and has served as the university’s head athletic trainer in all but one of those seasons. She was named the Appalachian Athletic Conference’s Athletic Trainer of the Year for 2025-26 and has received the conference honor three times.

Her professional recognition also includes the Eugene Smith/Mickey O’Brien College Athletic Trainer of the Year award from the Tennessee Athletic Trainers Association in 2024.

In addition to her work at Tennessee Wesleyan, Seekins serves on the NAIA Athletic Trainers Association Leadership Board and the NAIA Senior Woman Leaders Association Leadership Board. She also chairs the Appalachian Athletic Conference Senior Woman Leader Committee and serves on several university and conference committees.

Seekins credits her education and clinical experiences at UK with helping shape her career, including the graduate assistantship that first connected her with an NAIA institution.

“My time at Kentucky truly helped shape my professional life,” Seekins said. “My graduate assistantship at an NAIA institution is how I ended up in the NAIA all these years later. My clinical experience is what led me to stay on this path, and I still pull from those experiences today.”

Her time in the classroom also continues to influence her work as an educator. In addition to her administrative and sports medicine responsibilities, Seekins serves as an adjunct professor of health and human performance at Tennessee Wesleyan.

“I think back to my professors and time in the classroom, and model my own teaching philosophies after them,” she said. “Kentucky is where I really grew into myself as a professional and I will also cherish my time there!”