Lights FC’s Kori Jeffries one of few female trainers in pro soccer

During one late June practice, Lights FC technical director Jose Luis Sanchez Sola rattled off the ways his team is different than the rest of the USL.

After discussing his methods, tactics and players he pointed to the sideline and someone else who makes the Lights unique: Their head trainer.

Kori Jeffries is one of only five female head athletic trainers in the league and one of only a handful in male professional sports. She’s been an integral part of the team’s inaugural season — especially thanks to a wave of midseason injuries — and done her best to keep the Lights at full strength.

“I never had an issue integrating myself into a male-dominant team,” Jeffries said. “I was lucky I had such a good group that accepted me.”

Jeffries was a soccer player herself, taking the field at Palo Verde and Grand Canyon University before pursuing sports medicine. She received her master’s degree in kinesiology at UNLV in May 2017 and her job search coincided perfectly with the Lights’ hiring process.

After getting a recommendation from an ex-professor the team called to set up an interview in December, accidentally interrupting her honeymoon in the Caribbean.

“I was like ‘100 percent I’m interested, I’m just not in the country right now,’” Jeffries said.

She started the following week when preseason practices began and immediately discovered the job came with a few obstacles, just not the ones some might expect. She never had an issue being the only female member of the technical staff even though her situation is so rare.

There are no female head athletic trainers in the NFL, NHL or NBA and just one apiece in MLB and MLS.

“It was just respect right from the beginning,” Jeffries said. “That was something I was really happy with.”

While she found any sort of gender barrier easy to overcome, the language one was harder. Most of the Lights’ players and coaches speak Spanish and by Jeffries’ own admission her grasp of the language was “very, very limited.”

“I think the communication was probably the biggest barrier, definitely over being a female,” Jeffries said. “Hearing them talk, especially anything medically, at the beginning that was rough. I can translate most of the medical terminology I need to at this point. I’ve got the important stuff down.”

After being around the team so much this year Jeffries has picked up enough Spanish where she can go through a full injury evaluation with a player without any help from a translator. And her efforts to meet them halfway haven’t gone unnoticed.

“She’s good. She’s so professional with us,” defender Miguel Garduno said. “She knows when and how to work with every one of us.”

Garduno worked with Jeffries a lot while recovering from a knee injury earlier this year but now thanks to her help he’s back on the field. Forward Juan Carlos Garcia praised Jeffries as well for helping him play again after a potential career-ending knee injury.

“I didn’t know if I could play more soccer,” Garcia said.

Garduno and Garcia were once among a litany of names on the Lights’ injury report but it’s thinned. Everyone on the team has been healthy the past four games, which is a credit to its head trainer.

“I love that it’s not boring. Every day I come to practice, I come to games, I’m entertained always,” Jeffries said. “It’s enjoyable and the team makes it enjoyable. You feel like you’re improving their well-being, which is what I like.”

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Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.