Mimi Aoyagi attends classes two days a week at Cal State Long Beach, where she is working toward a Masters degree in Sports Medicine.

Most any other time of the week she’s working toward becoming a certified athletic trainer at Cerritos College, where she’s getting the real life experience necessary for her chosen field by working with Cerritos’ sports teams as an athletic trainer intern.

Aoyagi began working at Cerritos College one-and-a-half-years ago, shortly after arriving here from her homeland of Japan.

Having already obtained a bachelors degree in sociology from International Christian University in Tokyo, she enrolled at CSULB and began taking the prerequisites necessary to enter the Masters program. One of the requirements for admission was 150 hours of athletic training experience. CSULB put her in contact with Cerritos College’s athletic trainers department, and her life as an athletic trainer was underway.

Long-time Cerritos College athletic trainers, Brian Cable and Beverly Sweet both attended Long Beach, so they are two of the people CSULB refers its students to for athletic trainer’s experience.

In describing her first few months at Cerritos College, Sweet said, “Mimi was very quiet and reserved, but extremely curious. She attached herself to anyone who had experience and who she could learn from.”

Once she became comfortable, however, Aoyagi opened right up.

Her quiet demeanor in the beginning was probably because she was still “working on the language,” Sweet said. But the presence of other Japanese student trainers who had already been working at Cerritos helped to ease Aoyagi’s transition into her new environment.

Now, Aoyagi’s is one of the most recognizable faces at Cerritos College’s many sporting events.

It seems, no matter which team’s games you attend, Aoyagi is right there working with the players.

From the 80-man roster football team to the 16-player women’s soccer team and all other teams in between, Aoyagi can be seen supplying players with water, or towels, taping an ankle or checking out an injury.

There is a lot of affection for Aoyagi among the school’s athletes. Many of them call her their good luck charm.

A few weeks ago, shortly before a big game against Pasadena City College, the players on the football team found out that Aoyagi wasn’t going to be on the sideline like she usually is – the women’s basketball team was away at a weekend-long-tournament in San Diego and Aoyagi had drawn that assignment instead. Many of the football players were grumbling about how they were going to be without their good luck charm, Aoyagi. There might have been something to it, as the team suffered its worst defeat of the season, 51-12.

Football team member, Jaron Rimson, said, “Mimi’s the greatest . . . . she makes sure everybody’s okay . . . she stays on top of things.”

Athletic trainer, Brian Cable said, “The guys (football players) really like her because she works real hard, does a really good job and has an excellent attitude.”

“All sports would say that about her,” he added.

Aoyagi’s presence has become common around the trainers room and the playing fields, and many players such as Rimson have grown comfortable with her.

Recently, while taking a stroll across campus, Aoyagi was greeted by player after player, like young kids running upt to a favorite aunt.

The women’s basketball team had just concluded practice, and one of the players, Chrystal Johnson, who had just taken a strong blow to her head spotted Aoyagi, and went straight to her to be checked out. After talking to her for a few minutes, Aoyagi had Johnson go with her to the trainer’s room where she could be thoroughly checked out. Three other members of the team spotted her and ran over to plead with her to accompany them on an upcoming weekend tournament to the Fresno area.

Only two weeks prior, Aoyagi had accompanied the team to a San Diego tournament, where the players said, she helped make the trip a lot of fun.

Marci Wong said, “She watched movies with us . . . she’s just cool.”

Eterei Wong said Aoyagi went to the mall with a bunch of team members one day, and they had a really good time.

Cable said that even “women’s basketball coach, Karen Welliver was excited that [Aoyagi] was traveling with the team because the girls really like her.”

Aoyagi’s dream is to master her craft and then go back to Japan and work for the Japanese National Soccer Team.

“I love soccer,” Aoyagi said. “I played back in Japan, and while I was playing I got hurt a lot, so I got into taking care of myself and then I got into taking care of my teammates. One time when I taped a girl, she came back after the game and said, ‘the tape job really worked.'”

Aoyagi says that’s when she started to think about making a career out of taking care of athletes.

A friend of hers, who was planning on coming to the States to study for the same field began talking to Aoyagi about it, and soon they were talking about coming out together.

After convincing her to come to the States, however, Aoyagi says her friend changed his mind and decided he no longer wanted to go.

“That was kind of shocking,” Aoyagi said. “But I came by myself.”

All of these events were taking place during Aoyagi’s junior year of college in Japan.

“I was undecided of what I wanted to be. I started out thinking of going to (work) for the United Nations (after college),” Aoyagi said.

When she made up her mind to go into athletic training, she thought about immediately transferring to the U.S. to get started, but her parents convinced her to first complete her education in Japan, which she would always be able to use there.

After earning her Masters degree, Aoyagi would like to stay and work in the States awhile longer. She says she would like to work at a Division I. School and then at the professional level.

Talk to Aoyagi, and it might seem hard to believe she’s only been in the United States a couple of years. She seems home with American culture. She says a lot of times “people mistake me for being an American born Japanese person.”

The reality is that Aoyagi is not completely new to America. As a little girl she and her family lived in New York for four years. And after moving back to Japan, Aoyagi managed to come back to the States a couple of times to visit relatives.

She has an uncle who has lived here 30 years, and currently resides in Redondo Beach. Her brother has lived here many years, too.

Aoyagi says, “That soccer job (with the Japanese National Soccer Team) is a dream job for me, so that (goal) would never change.”

But she now wonders if maybe she would like to stay in America. She says she really likes it here.

Right now, Aoyagi’s enjoying living the Southern California lifestyle and hanging out with friends.