Mike Wilkinson is an award winning Hall of Fame athletic trainer who is a familiar figure at MHSAA, MAC, and MAIS athletic events. Born in Hawaii, he is a 1974 graduate of Bay St. Louis High, where he was a four-year letterman as an athletic trainer in football, basketball and track and a three-year letter winning playing doubles on the boys' tennis team. Selected as Most Dependable and graduating in the top 10% of his class, he attended Tulane University, where he lettered four years as student athletic trainer for the football team. He also served the women's basketball and volleyball teams for two seasons. Wilkinson was responsible for organizing, staffing and implementing the women's athletic training room at Tulane in compliance with Title Nine federal requirements. After earning his degree in 1978 and his graduate degree at Lamar University in 11981, he began his 39-year career in 1979 as a certified athletic trainer at Orangefield Independent School District in Orange, TX. From 1986 to 1989, Wilkinson served as clinic athletic trainer for Rehabilitation Services in Lake Charles, LA. In 1989, he arrived back in Mississippi, where he was named director of outreach services at Mississippi Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Center in Jackson. Wilkinson has received numerous professional and athletic awards and honors over his career, including the NFHS Distiguished Contributor Award in 2006. He was selected by the U.S. Olympics Committee as athletic trainer for the U.S. team in the 2000 Olymipcs in Sydney, Austrailia; the 1999 Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada; the 1998 Goodwill Games in New York; and the 1995 World University Games in Fuukuoka, Japan. He has received the Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer Award, Award of Merit and the District Award by the Southeastern Athletic Trainers' Association, which covers seven states. He is also a published author on articles related to athletic training, and he has made numberous athletic seminar presentations through the years. He secured corporate partnerships with the MAC, MHSAA and the MAIS from 1989 to present date. His volunteer work for the community includes logging more than 800 volunteer teaching hours for the American Red Cross from 1975 to present date. In 2008, he was inducted into the Mississippi Athletic Trainers' Association Hall of Fame. In 2017, he was inducted into the Southeastern Athletic Trainers' Association Hall of Fame.