The medical field holds around 16 million different jobs. So what led Katia Lira Garcia and Logan Weis to a one in a 16 million chance of becoming an athletic trainer?
Garcia moved to America from Mexico when she was in third grade. While she was still living in Mexico, her father was in the United States and only came home to visit for a month or so out of the whole year. During their time in Mexico, Garcia and her father bonded by watching soccer games together. As she watched, she always kept an eye on the medics who constantly ran out onto the field.
“I was always curious about who the person running out onto the field was because I always thought that they were cool,” Garica said. “I always loved sports and always wanted to be around them or help with them.”
Later when she went to college, she discovered that those people were athletic trainers. She said she then decided to change her major from physical therapy to an athletic training degree.
Garcia’s story goes back to her childhood memories, but so does GHS’s other athletic trainer, Logan Weis. This is her second year as an athletic trainer at GHS.
Weis said she always had the idea of going into the medical field. It was not until she got injured in a soccer game when she was younger and was constantly in physical therapy for around a year that she became interested in the sports side of medicine.
“Being in a lot of physical therapy, I wanted to stay involved in athletics, so I thought athletic training was a good way,” Weis said. “Being involved in sports from the beginning and just wanting to stay in them influenced me.”
It was very trial and error for Weis when she was in college. She entered the athletic training program at Texas State University (TSU) because of the hands-on experience she was able to have right from the beginning. She said her initial goal was to go into sports medicine, however that quickly changed when her schedule got too overloaded, and she found that she liked athletic training more.
Weis is currently considering whether she wants to get another degree on top of athletic training. She said she wants to continue to improve herself as a clinician.
Past relationships have led both of the athletic trainers into this career. Both trainers also agree that the relationships they continue to make today are one of the reasons they have stayed and enjoyed their profession.
“The best part of my job is getting to see injured students slowly starting to trust me because they will start coming up to me more easily once I start building that relationship,” Garcia said.
