2024 was a hall of fame year for Vince Stilger. He was inducted into not just one state Athletic Training Association Hall of Fame but two state Athletic Training Associations Hall of Fame, West Virginia and Indiana. Well deserved honors for this Lanesville, IN native with a 43 year career in the profession. What he has packed into those 43 years is hall of fame worthy at any level. Starting at Lanesville HS as a student athletic trainer and attending a athletic training workshop at Floyd Central HS, hosted by Glen Snow with a hall of fame faculty, he was well on his way for an athletic training career that would be remarkable. After a short stent at IU southeast he attended Indiana State University for both his undergraduate and masters degree. His first stop was at Saint Joseph's College in Rensselaer, IN as the head athletic trainer for four years. Then back to Indiana State as the head athletic trainer. In 1988 he became the program director for the athletic training undergraduate education program as well. This peaked an interest to purse a doctorate degree which he obtained in 1993 from Indiana University, while still volunteering with Football as a clinical athletic trainer. He spent one year at Xavier at the program director and finally landed at West Virginia University as the undergraduate program director and volunteer athletic trainer with football. He spent the next 24 years at WVU in the program director role and a volunteer clinical athletic trainer with football and baseball. He also served in leadership roles for the West Virginia Athletic Trainers' Association being elected President in 2014 to 2016.
Since 1988 Vince has been the Head Athletic Trainer and Manager of Medical Services for Special Olympics Indiana in Terre Haute. This has been a special role for him and he has developed volunteer staff that looks forward to the event every year.
Vince has been the recipient of the NATA service award in 2017, The West Virginia Special Recognition Award in 2018, Special Olympics Dennis Schmidt Impact Award in 2015, and West Virginia Athletic Trainers' Association 2005 Athletic Training Educator of the Year.
Vince is currently the Athletic Trainer for Lanesville High School and he and his wife, Melanie, reside in Lanesville.
