Rachel Gillespie enters her first year as head athletic trainer and third across two stints at Southern Arkansas University.
A familiar face, Gillespie returns to Magnolia as the department’s new Head Athletic Trainer. She previously served as an assistant athletic trainer at Southern Arkansas for two years from 2019-2021 and now takes over for SAU Sports Hall of Famer Ken Cole who retired following a career in athletic training that spanned the parts of five different decades. The official announcement was made Thursday, July 7.
“We are excited to see Rachel return back to SAU,” remarked Browning. “There is no doubt that our student-athletes and coaches are going to enjoy working with her. Her passion is to care for our student-athletes and I’m looking forward to watching our athletic training department continue to grow under her leadership.”
A native of Englewood, Ohio, Gillespie returns to SAU after serving for a year as an assistant athletic trainer at Division II Emporia State of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA).
While in Kansas, Gillespie oversaw the care of the Hornet Baseball and Women’s Basketball teams. Additionally, Gillespie was responsible for aiding in the day-to-day operations of the ESU Athletic Training Department which included the designing, coordinating and implementation of student-athlete treatment plans, development of department policies and procedures and the coordination of medical insurance, student-athlete medical histories and injury evaluations.
During her time in Magnolia, Gillespie served under Cole and worked primarily with Mulerider Football for two seasons. She previously worked on the athletic training staffs at Graceland University, UVA-Wise and fellow Great American Conference member Northwestern Oklahoma State, where she obtained her M.Ed. with an emphasis in Sports Administration and Adult Education Management and Instruction in 2017.
Gillespie, who is a member of the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA), has helped oversee the athletic care of multiple programs and she returns to SAU with over eight years of experience in collegiate athletics.
While at Northwestern Oklahoma State and UVA-Wise, Gillespie also served as the athletic trainer for each university's softball teams as well as the women's basketball team for one season in Alva. During her time at Graceland, Gillespie assisted with the wrestling and track & field programs and she has assisted with each university’s football program during her career.
A 2014 graduate of Miami University (Ohio) with a bachelor's degree in athletic training, Gillespie served as an instructor in SAU's Health, Kinesiology and Recreation Department and in July of 2020 the International Journal of Athletic Therapy & Training published Brachialis Strain in a Collegiate Wrestler: A Case Report from the collective work of Geiselman, J., Gillespie, R., and Miller, A. (2019).
