Shannon Burcham tried to nip any injuries to his track and field athletes in the bud during a Sigonella senior-junior pep rally this spring, yet he lost track of the one he needed to worry about the most: Rickalia Goss.

It was too late when he saw Goss competing in musical chairs. She and a track teammate fought over a free space, and the Jaguar senior banged her knee on the ground, hurting her IT band.

“I know Rickalia, and I know she’s not going to quit,” Burcham said of watching the tussle for the empty chair. “And she wasn’t quitting.”

That story was just one example of Goss’ competitive nature, which all of DODEA-Europe witnessed across three seasons en route to her being named DODEA’s European Athlete of the Year for 2024-25.

The daughter of Rick and Desiree Goss and biological mother Nesha William earned all-tournament honors in Division III for volleyball in the fall, won the 130-pound crown in the inaugural season of girls wrestling in the winter and swept the sprinting events at the European track and field championships in the spring.

Prominently displayed at Sigonella is the school’s Wall of Fame, which Goss saw as a freshman. That ignited two goals.

“I would always walk down there and be like, ‘I really want to be on the wall one day and hopefully become DODEA Athlete of the Year,’” Goss said. “It’s like a dream come true.”

That dream almost didn’t become a reality, though. Her father didn’t want her to jeopardize her future in track and field with injuries and told her over the summer that she wasn’t playing other sports this year.

Rickalia ground down her father first with volleyball, but almost immediately it seemed like Rick’s nightmares had come to pass.

During the volleyball jamboree in September, the Kingston, Jamaica, native twisted her ankle. She was nervous when she called her father afterward.

“He didn’t say much, and then he hung up the phone,” Goss said. “When I went home, he didn’t say anything; the car ride was silent.”

Via therapy with a sports specialist, Goss missed a couple of weeks and slowly worked her way back from libero to her natural positions of outside hitter and middle blocker.

The Jaguars struggled for much of the volleyball season before placing fifth in the Division III tournament in the Kaiserslautern Military Community.

After that, the lobbying began for wrestling.

That one was tougher, as Goss had been hurt all three seasons during which she competed against boys. She twisted her ankle as a freshman, broke her nose as a sophomore and hurt her hamstring and had her kneecap shifted as a junior.

Once it became clear a girls wrestling division was starting this season, Rick relented.

Her wrestling coach, Samuel Werlinich, couldn’t have been happier. He said he saw her dominating against the girls.

“She’s one of the fastest wrestlers I’ve ever seen,” Werlinich said. “She’s very smooth. She’s graceful. She has moves down pat.”

While Werlinich’s prediction proved mostly true, Ramstein’s Alejandra Sanner shocked her in a Jan. 18 loss at Aviano. Goss admitted she was too cocky that match.

Goss credited both Sigonella assistant coach Patrick Walsh and Rota head coach Luke Spencer, who showed her some techniques leading into the European tournament, for helping her get back on track.

When Goss and Sanner met in the title match in Wiesbaden on Feb. 8, the Jaguar almost piledrove the Royal headfirst into the mat after picking her off the ground before producing the pin at 1 minute, 11 seconds.

“I went over to say thank you (to Spencer), and I just started bawling my eyes out. He started crying, too,” said Goss, who went 15-1 this winter.

Goss entered the track season as the favorite in the sprinting events after placing second in all three in 2024.

The knee injury didn’t trip her up. At Kaiserslautern High School on May 22-23, she stood atop the podium in the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dashes with times of 12.33, 25.08 and 57.76 seconds, respectively.

The 200 performance was made even more impressive after she twisted her ankle with her last attempt in the long jump, in which she finished runner-up at 18 feet, 2.75 inches.

Booing from a person in the crowd ahead of the 100 motivated Goss.

“As soon as I reached the finish line, I got super excited. I started flexing,” she said. “They caught it on camera, and I was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know they were going to post that.’”

It capped off a Hall of Fame-worthy season and set up Goss nicely for her next stage at Maryville University, a Division II program near St. Louis. Goss will compete in the same four events for the Saints.

Her camp said they believe the atmosphere will mirror her time in Sicily, as Goss is expected to be the cornerstone of the sprinting program.

Her father has no doubt she can handle it. And it’s not because of her track prowess, either.

“I don’t have to worry about Rickalia going out in the world and moving out to college,” Rick Goss said. “I know that the experience she have with wrestling over the past couple of years make her so strong and make her the young lady she is now.”