49ers hire Laura Schnettgoecke as assistant athletic trainer

Wednesday morning, we learned that San Francisco 49ers assistant athletic trainer Nate Breske had departed for a job as head athletic trainer with the Chicago Bears. It turns out at some point this offseason, the 49ers had a replacement ready. According to Matt Maiocco, the 49ers hired Laura Schnettgoecke as assistant athletic trainer. It is a notable hire because she is the first female member of the training staff in franchise history.

Ideally the athletic trainers stay under the radar with a team staying as healthy as possible. Unfortunately, we know that is not the case in football. Injuries are going to happen, and we just hope they are somewhat limited. The 49ers had good injury luck early in the Jim Harbaugh era, but last year was an absolute disaster. The pendulum swung wildly to the other side.

All that being said, it is still helpful to know a little bit about the latest known addition to the 49ers staff. Schnettgoecke joins the team following six and a half years with the Texas Tech training staff. She worked as an assistant athletic trainer for the women's soccer team, and from what I can tell, did so for most of her time there.

Schnettgoecke graduated from Kansas State in 2005 with a bachelor's degree in Kinesiology and athletic training. While at KSU she was a student athletic trainer with the rowing team and football team. She then went to Clemson to earn a Masters' Degree in Human Resource Development. During her time at Clemson, she served as a graduate assistant to all 21 intercollegiate sports, while also getting specific work with the women's soccer team.

There is not a whole lot of information out there about Schnettgoecke, but @49ersHub on Twitter found an interesting feature from 2013 in the Texas Tech student newspaper. Here is another feature from her days as a student athletic trainer at Kansas State.