John Wooden once said "Make friendship a fine art." If that is the case then Rex Sharp is Michelangelo. It has never been about where he has been or the athletic training facilities he has designed while at those schools, or the committees he has lead or been on, or the Hall of Fames that he is currently in. It has been about the people he has come in contact with over his 45 year career as an athletic trainer and how he can help them.
That career started as a student athletic trainer at New Albany High School, New Albany, IN under NATA HOF member Jerry Bell and Don Ogle. Then in 1975 Rex made the trip to Muncie, IN to attend Ball State University. While at Ball State he won the National Athletic Trainers' Association Robert H. Gunn Scholarship for the nation's outstanding student athletic trainer in 1978. After graduation from Ball State he took a teaching job/athletic trainer at his high school alma mater in New Albany. After two years he decided attend graduate school. His uncle Randy Owsley was the head athletic trainer at Michigan Tech, a NCAA division II school in Houghton, MI. Rex decided to take the offer from Randy and spend 2 years in the upper peninsula getting his master's degree and ton of experience on his own. Next he was on to at the time was Northeast Missouri State, now Truman State. He was the first athletic trainer there and grew the program into a new athletic training facility and two GA athletic trainers. Then a phone call from Jim Dickerson changed the trajectory of his career. Ball State needed a Head Athletic Trainer and they were calling on Rex to lead the program back to prominence. Rex spent 11 years at Ball State and arguably some of the most successful years of the athletic training program. From new facilities, faculty, and athletic training students that have gone on to lead the profession. In 1996 Rex left Ball State for the University of Missouri. He spent 25 years at MIZZOU and again impacted the development of new athletic training facilities, team physician coverage, increasing athletic training staff, and started an integrated health care team to provide mental health support to MIZZOU athletes. One of the first in the country. Finally the establishment of an Undergraduate Athletic Training Education Program. In his time at MIZZOU he was on many prestigious safe guard and advisory committees for student-athlete health. Rex and his staff were recognized as the Athletic Training Staff of the year in 2000 and 2011 for the Big 12 Conference. He retired from MIZZOU in 2020.
In 2021 he accepted the Director of Sports Medicine position at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, FL
Rex was inducted into the Cardinal Sports Medicine Society Ring of Honor in 2005, The Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2017. The Missouri Athletic Trainers' Hall of Fame in 2018. And the New Albany High School Hall of Fame in 2018.
He currently resides in Daytona Beach, FL with his wife Eileen. They are the parents of three adult children, daughter Audrey and twins Adam and Jared.
