Craig Oates

A nine-year veteran in athletic training, Craig Oates joined the South Carolina staff in August 2019 to manage the overall daily health care of the women’s basketball team. He also supervises the graduate assistant athletic trainer for the equestrian team. With a student-athlete focused philosophy, Oates’ approach goes beyond the prevention, assessment and treatment of injuries to encompass the total well-being of each member of the team.

In his time at South Carolina, Oates has established relationships with all constituencies from student-athletes to coaches to the team physicians, who all value his expertise in the field. His commitment to educating and supporting the team through the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21 helped the Gamecocks play their full season schedule, which culminated in the 2021 SEC Tournament title and a run to the NCAA Final Four.

Oates has worked primarily with women’s basketball throughout his full-time career, managing the healthcare needs of the sport at Virginia (2016-19) and Campbell (2012-16) prior to his arrival in Columbia. As a graduate and undergraduate student, he worked with various other sports at Delaware and North Carolina, respectively.

A certified member of the NATA, Oates is an American Red Cross instructor for First Aid/CPR/AED, CPR/AED for the Professional Rescuer (C-PRO) and Basic Life Support (BLS). Additionally, Oates is a performance enhancement specialist through the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) and is a specialist in the Graston Technique, a form of soft-tissue instrument-assisted mobilization therapy. He is also certified in dry needling level 1 via structure and function (SFDN1).

In 2009, Oates earned his bachelor’s degree in exercise and sports science at the University of North Carolina, where he graduated with highest honors, and completed his master’s of science in exercise science at the University of Delaware (2015).