Kind, thoughtful, professional and now role model are all words that can be used to describe local resident and physical fitness trainer, Kevin Ennis.

Ennis, Dataw Island Community Center Director and partner at Carolina Sportscare, was awarded the South Carolina Athletic Trainers’ Association’s (SCATA) highest honor – the Fred W. Hoover Award for Excellence. He will be placed in the SCATA hall of fame as one of only 10 trainers to ever receive this award which honors members who have a long track record of giving unselfishly to the association and its membership.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect to be counted among people like Fred Hoover,” Ennis said. “I can’t even express what this feels like.”
With a glowing smile and easy laugh Ennis talked about his 31 year career and admitted that very few days during his tenure ever felt like work. He knew what he wanted to do since he went to his first student trainer camp at Clemson during middle school… what he wanted most was to help people.

“My dream was to be the head athletic trainer at a high school in South Carolina. I’ve always loved South Carolina,” Ennis said. “My first job after getting my Master’s Degree was as the head athletic trainer at the 16th largest high school in the state of South Carolina.”

After five or six years, Ennis received an offer from Beaufort Memorial Hospital to begin an outreach sports medicine program. He had children by this time and moving to the Beaufort area meant more time to spend with his family.

In 2001, a personal friend Mike Konoza, founded Carolina Sportscare with Ennis, Jim Denton and Kevin Green. They wanted to put the focus on people instead of billing like so many corporate companies do. One year later, the Dataw Island Club was in the process of getting ready to build the community center and potentially outsource the management. They chose Carolina Sportscare and Ennis was tasked with the management of the new facility.

“I’ve been at Dataw for 13 years now,” Ennis said. “It has definitely exceeded expectations for me and for Carolina Sportscare. I love what I do, whether scheduling quilting, helping someone recover from an injury or just managing the day to day operations of the Community Center… I love it all.”

Ennis shows passion and love in everything that he does from his clean organized facility, to his happy staff and glowing professional reputation. When talking about the award, he said that the people who have won this award are people he stands in awe of. Clearly many agree that Ennis is an excellent role model who deserves this award and the many others that he has received and will continue to receive for years to come.