A nationwide shortage in athletic trainers will once again rear its head as KSHSAA fall sports practices begin on Monday, commencing the 2024-25 season. According to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association , 41% of schools in Kansas do not have an athletic trainer. Rural schools are three-to-four times more likely to not have one compared to suburban schools.
Kansas is in the middle compared to its neighbors. Missouri (46%) and Oklahoma (68%) face a steeper shortage, while Colorado (33%) and Nebraska (36%) fare better. NATA also reports that there are over 800 athletic trainers in Kansas.
Nationwide, only 37% of public schools have a full-time athletic trainer. Hawaii is the only state in the country to require athletic trainers be employed at public schools. In May, the Associated Press reported on a trainer shortage impacting the college level.
The four areas fueling the shortage, according to the AP, are compensation, organizational culture, burnout and increased work responsibility. Those issues compound at the high school level. “A lot of the shortage comes from athletic trainers feeling like they’re undervalued and the change in education requirements,” said Tanner Forrest, the athletic trainer at Parsons High School.
“There’s less people that want to commit to a master’s degree because they don’t know if they see themselves doing it long term. But then once you get into it, you realize the hours are less than ideal. It can be 60 hours a week, maybe even more if you have to travel across the state.
On top of that, the pay is not where a lot of people feel like it should be given the service and care they receive.” Starting in 2022, master’s degrees became required to become certified as an athletic trainer rather than a bachelor’s degree — NATA admits on its website that the change increases student debt while not having a major impact on salary, particularly starting salaries. “That’s been a problem,” said Aaliyah Manuz, the athletic trainer at Chanute High School.
“I look at postings for colleges and they’re $35-40k a year. That’s a slap in the face.” Athletic trainers in high schools are frequently the first contact for athletes who need any type of medical care, especially in rural areas where it’s more likely that the athlete is uninsured or underinsured.
“I’ll have kids come in that are just having a bad day and need to just sit down and talk,” Manuz said. “People think everything is just physical — broken bones and a sprained ankle. But I help deal with the emotional and mental wellbeing of the kids.
We want to reach them in a holistic way.” The microscope around athlete health has sharpened its image over the last few years, both in the acute and the aggregate. Trainers were often instrumental in developing and executing COVID-19 strategies at the onset of the pandemic.
Last year, when NFL player Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills suffered cardiac arrest on the field during Monday Night Football, the quick response of trainers and emergency staff was widely credited for saving Hamlin’s life. Trainers at schools frequently work alone and are responsible for the entire student body and all sports, furthering the workload and disrupting each trainer’s work-life balance. “I’m lucky that I work for a hospital system.
So rather than working for a school, I work for a system where they don’t want me working more than 40 hours a week,” Forrest said. “It’s just like any other salaried person. I’m very fortunate to be in a situation where both parties — the hospital and the school — respect my personal time.
They give me the ability to take time off when I need to. I’m fortunate to not run into 50-plus-hour weeks often anymore. I know what it’s like though from when I worked at Fort Scott (Community College).
” Labette County High School in Altamont did away with its full-time athletic training position last year. “From personal experience with my own children, they could get treatments when the trainer was available,” said Leigh Ann Phillips, the Labette County volleyball coach. “Our coaches know things, but they’re trying to run a practice with 30-50 kids.
A coach dealing with an injury takes a coach off the court or field. And we don’t have the complete knowledge to treat something adequately.” Phillips added that having a trainer on staff keeps athletes in-house rather than missing school to attend doctor’s appointments.
“The big part we miss out on is having that availability for treatments,” Phillips said. “It was a luxury to have at the high school. It doesn’t take kids away from the school day to go see a physical therapist or a chiropractor.
We had a better handle on those types of things.” With fall practices starting in Kansas, the early focus is on mitigating the effects of high heat. KSHSAA has heat acclimatization rules in place and requires all coaches to be trained in CPR.
Survival rates for exertional heat stroke are 100% if athletes are treated within a 30-minute window and proper protocols are followed, according to University of Georgia professor and researcher Bud Cooper . “That’s our main focus right now,” Manuz said. “That’s the highest priority with fall sports.
It’s not just the heat. The humidity is what makes everybody so much more susceptible to heat illnesses. We’re relaying information to our coaches and we don’t get any pushback on that.
” At least 200 high school athletes in the U.S. have died playing sports, according to The National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research — it’s much more dangerous to drive to the game than it is to play it.
Further, about a quarter of athletes sustain an injury in a given year. Athletic trainers are the first line of defense for high school athletes. “I grew up in a 2A high school in Arizona and I didn’t know about athletic training until I was in seventh or eighth grade,” Manuz said.
“A doctor will just tell you to rest for a few weeks. Getting into the job, I’m able to treat athletes and give them something I never had. That’s kept me in it.
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