NATIONAL STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING ASSOCIATION ANNOUNCES 2022 CAREER AWARDS

The NSCA Announces the 2022 Career Award Recipients

Colorado Springs, CO – The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) is proud to announce the organization's 2022 Career Awards winners. Each year, these distinguished awards honor those individuals who have made significant contributions to the strength and conditioning community throughout their careers. Each award winner will be formally recognized at the NSCA's National Conference, to be held July 6-9, in New Orleans, LA.

Since 1993, the Boyd Epley Award for Lifetime Achievement has honored individuals who have exhibited historical impact, achievements, and dedication to the NSCA over the course of their careers. This award is named after Boyd Epley, founder of the NSCA, and is considered the most prestigious award a member of the NSCA can achieve. The Board of Directors is honored to announce the 2022 recipient, Michael J. Nitka, MS, CSCS,*D, RSCC*E, FNSCA*E.

Coach Nitka currently serves as an Adjunct staff member in the Exercise Science Department at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. Before serving at Carroll, he coached high school football and wrestling and taught at Muskego High School for 38 years.

Coach Nitka has been a member of the NSCA since 1985. During this time, he served the NSCA as a speaker, volunteer, official international representative, reviewer, editor, and author. In addition, he chaired several committees and served twice on the Board of Directors.

Among his many NSCA accomplishments, Coach Nitka served both as Vice-President and Secretary/Treasurer on the Board of Directors, was the column editor of the "High School Corner" in the Strength and Conditioning Journal, served on the Coaching Performance Committee, Conference Committee, Nomination Committee, as Chair on the Fellow Review Committee, and Chair of the High School Strength and Conditioning Coaches Special Interest Group. In 1996, the NSCA awarded him Strength and Conditioning Professional of the Year – High School Affiliated. Most recently, Coach Nitka co-edited the textbook NSCA's Guide to High School Strength and Conditioning.

He holds both the Registered Strength and Conditioning Coach, Emeritus (RSCC*E) and Fellow of the NSCA, Emeritus (FNSCA*E).

The Alvin Roy Award for Career Achievement, created in 1986, honors Alvin Roy, who helped establish strength and conditioning as the cornerstone of any training program. Roy was one of the first coaches to show that lifting weights would improve both speed and power, and he helped debunk the myth that lifting weights made athletes slower. In his honor, this esteemed award is given to an individual whose career achievements made a substantial impact on the scientific understanding, methodologies, and practice of resistance training as a component of sports conditioning. The Board of Directors is honored to announce the 2022 recipient, Mike Greenwood, PhD, FNSCA, CSCS,*D, FISSN, FACSM, awarded posthumously.

Dr. Mike Greenwood's career spanned over forty years as a coach, teacher, researcher, administrator, and leader in many professional and service organizations. He began his career teaching high school physical education and coaching football, track, and basketball. Mike also served as an assistant professor, baseball, and basketball coach at Hardin Simmons University. After completing his doctoral degree, he was an associate professor and Head Baseball Coach at Barry University, where he was named the 1995 Sunshine State Conference Baseball Coach-of-the-Year. Mike was later tenured as a full professor at Arkansas State University and began collaborating with the Exercise and Sport Nutrition Lab (ESNL) at the University of Memphis. He continued as a research associate with the ESNL when it relocated to Baylor University, where he served as a professor and graduate coordinator. At Texas A&M University, Mike was a clinical professor, director of the West Point Faculty Development program, and continued as an ESNL research associate.

During his career, Mike's research focused on physical education, coaching, motor control, sport psychology, and professional development of strength and conditioning specialists. In collaboration with ESNL researchers and doctoral students, Mike's research also included seminal work on creatine supplementation as well as significant research on the safety and efficacy of β-hydroxy β-methylbutyrate (HMB), conjugated linoleic acids (CLA), ribose, nutrient timing, and many other nutritional interventions designed to optimize strength training and performance. In addition, he contributed chapters to the NSCA's Essentials of Strength and Conditioning textbook related to facility management and safety, wrote several sport nutrition-related books, and contributed to several highly cited position stands published by the International Society of Sports Nutrition. He has more than 225 publications and 5,000 citations in the literature. Mike was also very involved in his professional organizations serving on over 50 state, regional, and national committees. His service to the NSCA included state director in both Arkansas and Texas and as a member of numerous committees (education committee, research committee, curriculum director for NSCA educational recognition programs, committee for disabled populations, undergraduate and graduate education recognition subcommittee, educator of the year award subcommittee, executive council of the NSCA certification commission).

In addition, Mike served as an abstract, scholarship, and grant reviewer for the NSCA, as well as a reviewer, editorial board member, and associate editor on multiple journals, including the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research and the Strength and Conditioning Journal. In addition, Mike received numerous departmental, college, university, and professional awards and fellowships throughout his career in recognition for his teaching, scholarship, and service. He was a fellow of the International Society of Sport Nutrition and the American College of Sports Medicine. He was also very proud to be a fellow of the NSCA and to have received the NSCA Educator of the Year Award in 2004. Mike held both the CSCS*D and RSCC*D credentials.

Dr. Mike Greenwood's dedication to teaching, scholarship, and service will live on through the thousands of lives he has positively influenced throughout his career.

The NSCA Impact Award, awarded since 1997, honors an individual who has made significant contributions that have impacted a segment of the overall field of strength and conditioning. The 2022 recipient, as selected by the Board of Directors, is Steve Bliss, Med, CSCS, RSCC*E, FNSCA.

Coach Bliss served as the first strength and conditioning coach at the University of Miami, The Ohio State University, and North Dakota State University. During his 50+ years in the industry, he has coached national champions and authored "Buckeye Football Fitness, 4th Down and One Rep to Go," which has been admitted to the Jefferson Room at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. He currently serves as the Exercise Coordinator for Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Coach Bliss has served the NSCA in many capacities including as President from 1987 to 1989, on the Board of Directors, as State Director of South Dakota, and on several NSCA committees. Steve helped establish the NSCA Challenge Scholarship and the insurance liability programs while serving on the Board. He was awarded the NSCA Strength Coach of the Year in 1991 and the Boyd Epley Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2010. In 2018, Coach Bliss was recognized as a Fellow of the NSCA (FNSCA).

Steve has been married to his wife Doenise for 35 years and has two grown sons, Evan and Joe.

"Congratulations to all the award winners for these well-deserved honors," said NSCA Executive Director Michael Massik. "Each of these individuals has changed many lives and they exemplify what it is to be an NSCA professional. We are proud to have them as part of our community."

For more information regarding the NSCA and these awards, please visit nsca.com/membership/awards.

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About the National Strength & Conditioning Association
Founded in 1978, The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) is a nonprofit association dedicated to advancing the strength and conditioning and related sport science professions around the world.

The NSCA exists to empower a community of professionals to maximize their impact through disseminating evidence-based knowledge and its practical application by offering industry-leading certifications, research journals, career development services, networking opportunities, and continuing education. The NSCA community is composed of more than 60,000 members and certified professionals throughout the world who further industry standards as researchers, educators, strength and conditioning coaches, performance and sport scientists, personal trainers, tactical professionals, and other related roles.