Caring for and coaching Cape student-athletes

It takes a village to raise a Viking, and coaches and athletic trainers are a big part of that support system. Hollyann Wettstein happens to fill both roles for Cape.

“I'm super grateful that I'm here, because I couldn't imagine myself anywhere else,” Wettstein said.

The Hagerstown, Md. native made her way to becoming one of two athletic trainers at the high school, and the first coach for the girls’ wrestling program, after a friend recommended she check out the school by the water.

Wettstein earned her bachelor's degree in athletic training at the University of Delaware. She then earned a master's degree at McDaniel College outside Baltimore. While at McDaniel, she worked for two years as a graduate assistant athletic trainer.” 

“I had a friend who was leaving this position, and she had such a great experience here at Cape,” Wettstein said.

Wettstein is starting her third year at the school, and she enjoys how friendly the Cape community is when she is out and about.

“I have some student-athletes in my apartment complex with me, and had some kids knock on my door the other day to ask me if I wanted them to shovel my car out,” Wettestein said. “I have a good little group of people around me, and it's a really safe place to be.”

Her journey to building a life in the Cape Region began with a bond shared with her father.

She wanted to find a way to care for folks in an athletic setting.

“We would go see the Angels play the Orioles every year in their annual series, and I would see the athletic trainer working with Mike Trout,” Wettstein said.

She was initially going to go the physical therapist pathway at the University of Delaware because it was a good program, but she chose athletic training.

“I fell in love with it, and I was like, ‘This is absolutely what I want to do,’” Wettstein said. “Why would I do three more extra years of school when I can just do what I want to do now?”

Wettstein logged around 1,500 undergrad hours working with a variety of teams to gain as much knowledge about the types of care to render across the different motions each sport requires. She said the program was grueling, but that played a big role in preparing her for her dream job.

With textbook knowledge and clinical experience in hand, the next step was to gain the trust of student-athletes. To accomplish this, it’s important to get to know their physical and mental tendencies.

“You're so aware of certain student-athletes, as you spend a lot of time with them, that you can see if little things are wrong or little things are bothering them,” Wettstein said. “We learned from the Olympics just recently how important mental health is also in the aspects of student-athletes and athletes in general.”

Cape is blessed to have some of the most skilled athletes in the state, and Wettstein and her fellow trainer Ashley Schuster get to see more than just their play between the lines.

“We have such high-achieving athletes. You get to see them perform at such a high level, but then you also get to be goofy with them,” Wettstein said. “They're gonna be future Division I athletes, and they come in here every day with a smile on their face. We have handshakes with them; they come grab snacks. They're just kids at the end of the day, and it's really cool to be able to see both sides of that coin with them.”

Wettstein recalled the efforts of state champion wrestler Patrick Donahue, MLB draft pick Jase Mitchell and baseball state champion Trey Hitchcock on their senior-year journeys.

“They were very aware of their body and aware of what they needed to do to be successful,” Wettstein said. “They weren't necessarily injured, but they were in here every day, every other day, doing preventative things.”

Wettstein said she and Schuster like when their advice lands.

“When the athletes listen to us, we appreciate that so much, because you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink,” Wettstein said. “We will give them as many tidbits of information and tools for them to take care of themselves as we can.”

Should she happen into seven figures’ worth of funding, Wettstein knows exactly what she would do with it.

“I would want to make sure that every student-athlete ate the way that they were supposed to eat, and got the rest that they were supposed to get,” Wettstein said. “To get to that next level, you have to be in tune with what your body needs when it comes to getting the proper hours of sleep, eating the proper food at the proper time and recovering, especially with so many athletes doing so many sports in season and out of season, and at the same time with club sports.”

Wettstein added she and Schuster advocate for rest too, believing it to be just as important as any cardio or strength reps.

Speaking of taking a rest, Wettstein has deserved some after fulfilling her duties as an athletic trainer and coaching the girls’ wrestling team in its first full season.

“Super excited for this opportunity,” Wettstein said. “I'm still kind of reflecting on it because it's funny, when I was in high school, we had little goal sheets, and you would write what you wanted out of that year and what your long-term goals were. I vaguely remember writing I want to be a coach of a girls’ team.”

Wettstein took the helm last year, but the team ended up mixing in with the boys. This year, the girls’ team had its own schedule, competed in several tournaments and had the numbers to practice on their own, for the most part.

“You never really know how those opportunities are going to present themselves because it's very much secondary to my job here as an athletic trainer – and athletic training has always been my foremost passion – so when this opportunity kind of opened itself last year, I was very interested in it.”

Once again, when the job came back this year, it was hers to claim.

It’s safe to say when she was able to rest, she did so soundly.

“It is so, so rewarding, and I just look forward to the growth of this program,” Wettstein said. “I literally had girls in my room yesterday asking me about off-season tournaments. I was like, ‘Guys, it's been a week. We need to settle down.’ It turned into something that I couldn't have even imagined.”

Wettstein thinks it's cool these girls were pushed outside their comfort zones, encouraged their teammates and were supported by the boys’ team and the fans. She believes it is a unique position for the girls to be in because, for the most part, starting a sport in high school can put an athlete behind. But all the girls are new or relatively new to the sport, leveling the playing field a bit.

“As much energy and attention that you're gonna put into it is what you'll get out of it, and the girls did all the things that I could have asked of them,” Wettstein said. “This year we laid the foundation. Next year we can build on it, and then you'll start seeing it.”

She believes it is more about personal improvement as opposed to wins and losses, and thinks success can be measured in a spectrum, accounting for where one starts.

“It is a lot of life lessons too, that you learn physically and mentally with your time on the mat, which I think the ladies are also picking up,” Wettstein said. “A lot of the lessons I learned when I was in high school, and what I learned from my high school coach transcend into my life now.”

When she is not taping ankles or coaching her grapplers, Wettstein enjoys spending time with her fiance Jared Caudell, her 19-year-old Chihuahua Taz (the love of her life) and her cats Nutter Butter and Fig Newton. She likes to garden inside and outside, and can throw down in the kitchen too.

“I'm on a little bit of a sourdough journey. I have a starter. She's been alive for a year. I'm pretty proud of that,” Wettstein said.

She will begin a new journey with Jared this summer when the two tie the knot. Believe it or not, they crossed paths when they were younger in Hagerstown, but they didn’t start dating until one of Wettstein’s college breaks. They’ll now start their family here in the Cape Region as members of the Vikings Village.