[9] Early in his career, Goebel was coached by Carol Heiss Jenkins and Glyn Watts near his Illinois home and then moved to California to work with Frank Carroll.[10] During his skating career and prior to the arrival of Nathan Chen to the sport, Goebel was sometimes referred to as the "Quad King"[11][12] because of his ability to land quadruple jumps.[2] Goebel was heavily criticized early in his career for focusing exclusively on jumping to the detriment of choreography and presentation, but in later years he improved in those areas.At the 2006 U.S. Championships, in what he had previously announced would be his last competitive season, he was unable to land either a quadruple jump or triple Axel cleanly, and dropped to a seventh-place finish which left him far short of qualifying for the 2006 Winter Olympics.[2] He planned to continue to contribute to the sport as a technical specialist, having received certification for competitions sanctioned by the United States Figure Skating Association.