April 27, 2006

Kathy Laguens has been hired as an assistant athletic trainer at the University of Notre Dame, it was announced recently. She has already begun her duties and will work primarily with the Irish softball and cheerleading squads.

Laguens comes from Florida Atlantic University, where she was an assistant athletic trainer, working with the Owls’ women’s basketball, baseball, and men’s soccer teams. Laguens was responsible for the prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of all injuries orthopedic and medical for the FAU women’s hoops squad that won the Atlantic Sun Conference championship this season and made its first-ever trip to the NCAA Division I Championship.

Prior to her time at FAU, Laguens worked at Florida State University, where she earned both a bachelor’s degree in exercise science (2002) and a master’s degree in education (’05). She served as a graduate assistant athletic trainer at FSU from 2003-05, working with both the men’s and women’s swimming and diving and women’s volleyball teams. Laguens also assisted with student-athlete drug testing, as well as the inventory, organization, and ordering of products and equipment. She instructed and supervised undergraduate athletic training students and fulfilled several other duties.

Laguens also served as a student athletic trainer at Florida State during her undergraduate days, during which she served as the head student athletic trainer for softball and swimming and diving and also worked with the Seminoles’ football team, traveling with it to the FedEx Orange Bowl for the 2001 national championship game (following the 2000 season). She also assisted with a University of North Carolina prospective study on injury assessment, return to play, and outcome following a concussion sustained in athletics.

She became a NATABOC (National Athletic Trainers Association Board of Certification) certified athletic trainer in 2003 and has since become a qualified examiner through the organization’s training program. Laguens earned a first aid certification from the American Red Cross in 2005 and is a certified CPR professional rescuer.

Her experience includes caring for student-athletes at several conference championships, as well as providing CPR and/or first aid coverage at many events, including an intramural wrestling championship, the Southeastern Invitational youth soccer tournament, an FSU club lacrosse tournament, and youth soccer and volleyball summer camps. Laguens also served as a teaching assistant in athletic training curriculum at Florida State and was an advisor to its Student Athletic Training Association.

Born May 5, 1980, Laguens hails originally from Pensacola, Fla., and is a 1998 graduate of Pine Forest High School.