Eddie Benion is in his first season with the Maryland men’s basketball team and his eighth campaign on head coach Buzz Williams’ staff in 2025-26. He serves as part of the University’s Sports Medicine Staff as the Program Director for Basketball Sports Medicine and as the Head Men’s Basketball Athletic Trainer.
The versatile Benion plays an integral role managing the daily healthcare of the men’s basketball team and the operation of the training room. He handles the team’s daily injury and illness management, medical evaluations and treatments, rehabilitation protocols, corrective exercises, recovery strategies and post-operative care.
Prior to joining the staff at Texas A&M in 2019, Benion served as assistant athletics director for sports medicine at Virginia Tech for one season following eight years in a similar role at VCU, where his primary duties were with men's basketball.
Before VCU, Benion spent six seasons as the head athletic trainer at Cleveland State. He was responsible for all aspects of the athletic training program, including the ordering and maintenance of supplies and equipment, coordinating preseason physicals and in-season medical care, filing athletic insurance claims and supervising the student athletic training program.
Benion also spent six years as the head athletic trainer at Alabama A&M and a year as the head athletic trainer at East Lansing (Mich.) High School.
A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Benion earned his bachelor’s degree in nutrition and physical fitness from the University of Missouri in 1995. He served as a student trainer for the Tigers for three years, overseeing the volleyball team’s medical needs. Benion went on to earn a master’s degree in kinesiology at Michigan State while working with the Spartans’ football, men's soccer and cheerleading teams.
A certified athletic trainer by the National Athletic Trainer's Association (NATA), Benion completed a pair of athletic training internships with the National Football League, working with the New York Giants preseason camp in 1994 and the Kansas City Chiefs in 1995.
