Skidmore College Athletics

Mike Garcia is a seminal figure in the history of Skidmore Athletics. Hired by former Director of Athletics Tim Brown as head athletic trainer in 1980, Garcia spent the next 30 years building a distinguished athletic training program, and rehabilitating injured players with expert care. As coach and teacher, he helped shape the evolution of Skidmore's physical education program into two distinct, nationally recognized departments, Health and Exercise Science, and Athletics. 

Garcia did it all with an extraordinary dedication to excellence and an unwavering commitment to the success and well-being of the student-athletes he served. He taught courses in sports medicine and athletic training, along with other core curricular offerings. Garcia, who developed the athletic training portion of the exercise science major, also designed the Ahearn Athletic Training Room in the Williamson Sports and Recreation Center. He coached Men's Lacrosse in the 1980s, and later directed a recreational activities program, teaching everything from karate to fly-fishing.  

But it was his extraordinary ability to prepare student-athletes for peak performance and bring injured players safely back into the game that earned Garcia the enduring gratitude of generations of Thoroughbreds. "There would be no Skidmore Hall of Fame inductees without the wisdom, sacrifice, and magic performed by Mikethroughout the years," notes Women's Basketball alumna Tracey Watson '86. He was a true believer in the student-athlete and looked out for each player's best interest." Current Director Gail Cummings-Danson agrees, "There is no athletic trainer more knowledgeable than Mike Garcia."