Shape up

Sports medicine director helps Carolina athletes prepare for play

Professional sports, collegiate sports, reality-show sports—Carolina’s director of sports medicine has a 28-year athletic training career that includes experience in each of these areas.

At Carolina since last June, John Kasik assists in the overall management and coordination of the University’s athletic training/sports medicine program. He also helps coordinate all phases of health care for Gamecock student-athletes. “This is a great opportunity with what athletics director Eric Hyman is doing with the sports medicine program within the athletic department and in the sports medicine curriculum at Carolina,” Kasik said. “We will have one of the best sports medicine programs in the country, and it is an honor to be part of it.”

A Baltimore native, Kasik comes to the University after a nearly three-decade athletic training career that includes stints for the Baltimore Colts and Carolina Panthers. Most recently, he was athletic trainer and set medic for the NBC television series The Biggest Loser and head athletic trainer at Stanford University.

Kasik is a 1980 graduate of the University of West Virginia with a degree in secondary education. In 1981, he received a master’s degree in physical education/athletic training from the University of Miami.