Around four in the afternoon Monday through Friday you will usually find the training room full of athletes preparing for practices, whether that means getting their ankle taped, heating, physical therapy or something like that. With 256 athletes coming in and out of the training room throughout the year, Linda Kaminskis is always there doing everything possible to help Goshen athletes be successful in their sport.

In the process of becoming the Goshen College athletic trainer, Kaminskis got the chance to be an athletic trainer in various events that include the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championship, Indiana State games, Pan American games, 1991 World Gymnastic championship, State Softball All-Star game and many more.

Kaminskis sees her involvement in the various events as a learning experience that brought her more knowledge in her profession and the latest research and technology within the field of sports medicine. Kaminskis joined Goshen College after 33 years of teaching anatomy, health and physical education at Northridge High School. She is a graduate of Butler University, and she is a certified athletic trainer who was selected as an Indiana Athletic Trainer of the Year in the high school division.

While at Northridge, Kaminskis was happy teaching and being the school athletic trainer, but as the years passed, she realized the highlight of her days would be working with the athletes. When there was an opening at Goshen College for an athletic trainer, one of her former student athletic trainer assistants called to inform her that the trainer at the College was leaving and asked if she would consider taking the job. She was content being at Northridge, but this allowed her to retire from teaching and become a full time athletic trainer.

“Being an athletic trainer is very much like being [in] detective work. Your job is to figure out what happened to the athlete, so you can treat it and make the athlete effective in their endeavors,” Kaminskis said. Although Kaminskis’s role is behind the scenes, it is a critical one in how well Goshen teams do throughout the season as teams face injuries and fatigue.