After graduating from Pfugerville High School in Texas, Joe Worden attended the University of Texas in Austin where he completed a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Education in Physical Education. While at the University of Texas, Joe became interested in the care and prevention of athletic injuries. He had the unique opportunity to train under the legendary Frank Medina, a former U.S.Olympic Trainer.
Joe was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps and saw action in Guam and the Marshall Islands during World War II. He became Vanderbilt’s head athletic trainer in 1949 and handled all sports until 1971 when he was assigned to specifically care for football and men’s basketball. He continued to assist club sports and in 1977 began working with the newly created women’s intercollegiate athletic program. He officially retired from Vanderbilt in 1986, but continued to volunteer his services. He never missed a game until his death on June 5, 1998.
Affectionately referred to as “Joe Bird”, he was one of the most respected and beloved staff members in the history of Vanderbilt Athletics. He represented District IX on the NATA Board of Directors from 1964 to 1965. He was inducted into the NATA Hall of Fame in 1984, the Tennessee Athletic Trainers’ Society Hall of Fame in 1994, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 2004, and SEATA Hall of fame in 2007. Two highly regarded awards have been named for him – the Joe Worden Clinic/Professional Athletic Trainer of the Year Award given by the Tennessee Athletic Trainers’ Society and the Joe L. Worden Courage Award presented by the Middle Tennessee Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame.
For most of his career at Vanderbilt Joe didn’t have an assistant athletic trainer, but he did have students who helped. One was Joe-Joe Petrone, among other positions, Joe-Joe was assistant athletic trainer at University of Mississippi (1981-1987), assistant athletic trainer for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1987-1996), seven years as head athletic trainer for Middle Tennessee State University and is presently the Director of Sports Medicine at Auburn University. Joe-Joe says of Joe Warden, “He would tape the bottom of the ankle when he got done with his tape job and I still do it in his honor. He told me it was his little love tap for the kids to have good luck. He was a great man and friend.”
Lindsy McLean’s reflections and memories of Joe Worden. “In the fall of 1954, I reluctantly became the student manager for the football team at Hillsboro High School here in Nashville at the insistence of Hale Harris, who I assisted as the baseball manager the previous spring. With those duties came the responsibility for the Cramer First Aid Kit. That fall, I studied the Cramer First Aiders sitting on the desk of Coach Henry Nance. Soon this became the most enjoyable part of my job, playing the role of the student trainer. In the early summer of 1955, I saw an article in the Nashville Banner about Joe Worden teaching a course of athletic injury care for high school coaches at Peabody College that summer. I didn’t know Joe then, but decided to go over to the Vanderbilt Training Room in Palmer Field House to see it he would allow me to “listen in” in his class to learn more about how to care for the injuries at Hillsboro that coming fall. Instead of saying “go away kid” he was very nice to me and gave me permission to attend. I took copious notes on everything he said. He was very well organized and an excellent instructor. I used the same notes to organize my courses five years later at San Jose State and then even later, the University of Michigan on the treatment and care of athletic injuries with very few changes. At any rate, I was hooked on athletic training and due to Joe’s influence and friendship, I decided to enroll at Vanderbilt upon graduation from high school and work as a student apprenticing under him. We never had more than one additional student assisting Joe other than myself during my four years there, so I got to do and observe everything. Joe was respected as a professional by the football players in the quiet way he ran the (athletic) training room. He was always clam, relaxed, but ready for any unexpected injuries on the field. He taught me that I should rush out on the field to tend an injured player who was moving or flailing around, but to run like hell to get out there if there was no movement at all. He, having worked under Frank Medina at Texas, was always in control, at least that was my impression. Although Joe was quiet, he had a subtle since of humor.”