Paul Murata joined the South Carolina Athletics Department in August 2012, bringing over 12 years of experience in athletic training in NCAA Division I and III institutions. Four of those 12 years came working with Dawn Staley's team at Temple University. Additionally, Murata brings more than a decade of undergraduate teaching experience to the program. In addition to his athletic training duties with women's basketball, Murata is an instructor in the Athletic Training Education Program at the University.

Prior to his arrival in Columbia, Murata worked with University of Virginia women's basketball for four seasons. He supervised the graduate assistant athletic trainer responsible for volleyball and was the summer camp coordinator at the university as well. Murata has presented cases at the UVA Sports Medicine Conference, including a case study on supraventricular tachycardia in a collegiate volleyball athlete. He also served as a mentor and lecturer in the UVA Sports Medicine Department, annually instructing graduate students on foot mechanics and orthotic fabrication.

At Temple from 2004 to 2008, Murata primarily worked with women's basketball while also supervising the athletic training needs of field hockey, women's rowing, men's and women's tennis, fencing and track and field. Before returning to his alma mater, he was the head athletic trainer for one year at Lincoln University (Pa.), where he taught six different classes in the kinesiology department, and spent two years as the head athletic trainer at Lower Merion High School.

Murata is a certified member of the National Athletic Trainers Association along with being certified as an American Red Cross professional rescuer and adult and child/infant first aid and CPR/AED instructor. He earned his both his master's and bachelor's degrees from Temple University in 2002 and 2000, respectively.