Inspiration from past helps trainer move up on athletic ladder

Facing the adversity of societal standards and stereotypes, head athletic trainer Rebecca Goetz has risen above judgement and passed on her knowledge to her students and trainees.

Her career was launched by her experience as an athletic training student aide during her junior and senior year of high school. She was motivated to become a high school athletic trainer by her own trainer in high school, who was also female.

“Because I had a female athletic trainer, it made me know what I wanted to do,” Goetz says.

She moved on to receive a Bachelors of Science in Athletic Training and a Masters in Secondary Education from Northern Arizona University, both of which she immediately put to use when she went straight into teaching at Casa Grande Union High School.

Two years ago, she was offered a position to teach Sports Medicine 1 and 2, and become a head athletic trainer. Being female has not affected her career in any way, even though society has pushed the idea that it is unusual for a woman to be in such a position.

“Even though it doesn’t look like it, [the industry] is very 50/50 male and female,” Goetz says, “we’ve been there for 20 to 30 years now.”

Goetz is not the first female trainer that has found employment at Perry; in fact, Sarah Rowe was an athletic trainer last year.

Female trainers have always been prominent in the Perry community, and they are also becoming increasingly common in the entire sports industry. More and more are popping up to take their place on the fields and in the training rooms as they become universally accepted.

“I don’t think now people blink an eye whether [trainers are] male or female, and if you look around at other high schools and colleges, it’s not uncommon to see a female,” Principal Dan Serrano says, “I think they are accepted.”