The COMmunicator Spring 2023 | Page 8

Interview with Renate Meckl,

COM '23

Student Doctor Renate Meckl is an Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine/Anatomy Fellow.

She participated in the Care for the Underserved Populations Scholars Program and was selected amongst a group of her peers to complete third year rotations in the Longitudinal Integrated Curriculum emphasizing rural health care in Maine.

During COVID, she also was involved in the COVID-Literature Surveillance Team, where she was involved in increasing health literacy of the general population by improving accessibility of current, evidence-based medical research information

Student doctor Meckl currently plays professional women’s tackle football after playing softball for over 15 years competing nationwide and at the Division I level at University of Tennessee-Martin, where she served as the Team Captain for her junior and senior year.

How did you become involved in the Pro Football League?

This is really a story of everything lining up at the right time. I was in rural Central Maine on my third year of rotations. I'm an early morning gym goer, and as you can imagine in rural Maine, the population is much older. There was another girl at the gym who was always there at 5am, the same time that I was. We ended up crossing paths one day, and I was like, “You're an athletic, young person. We should be friends.” One day we were chatting about what sports we played because it was very evident that we were both athletes in whatever capacity, and I saw her bag, a Boston Renegades football duffel. It was through her that I really got hooked on the team.

I went to a few games that spring of ’21, because it sounded right up my alley, like something I would really, really enjoy. I’d missed that team atmosphere, having played college softball for years, and had wanted to replicate it. Even just watching was such a cool, meaningful experience; seeing all these women playing a sport that women don’t typically play and playing at a really high level. It was super cool just to witness this team exist; this league exist.

One game, I was sitting in the stands and one of the coaches, a former NFL player for the Patriots and the Raiders, asked, “Are you thinking about playing?” And I was like, “Well, you know, I'm thinking about it for next season. We'll see.” After going to those games, I went to some tryouts and was instantly hooked. Then came the decision: I would really enjoy this but, logistically speaking, how is this going to fit into my schedule? I really grappled with how I was going to make this work. I remember calling my mom and I was like, “I think I can do it. I think I can make this happen,” and she said, “I think you could make it happen.” I thought, “I’m going to do this! Here we go. We're going in.”