MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Chris King, the chair of the Alabama Board of Athletic Trainers, told lawmakers recently that expanding funding for a new grant program could help the state address its shortage of athletic trainers in public schools and elsewhere.
The shortage of sports medicine professionals has been exacerbated by certification requirements and comparatively low pay.
King was speaking recently during a meeting of the Legislative Joint Sunset Committee in Montgomery, and championed a bill passed in 2023 by Sen. Donnie Chesteen, R-Geneva, which provided state grants for schools that employ athletic trainers in rural areas.
Lawmakers allocated $300,000 for the program in both the 2024 and 2025 education budgets. The board is in charge of distributing that money and previously told Alabama Daily News the first round of funding won’t be distributed until this coming spring.
“Putting in that money has been a nice carrot to keep people where they’re at, and also to draw people in,” King said. “We just hope in the future we can fund it a little bit larger to where we can increase it into 4a, 5a, and then move on up.”
Only 1A, 2A, 3A and Title I secondary schools are currently eligible for the grant program.
King said that the shortage of athletic trainers in the state still persists, however, and that a recent change to certification requirements had seen rates of students graduating with degrees in athletic training plummet.
“The fact that we moved three years ago to a masters’ entry level, that’s created a shrinkage of athletic trainers coming out of school because their salaries have not risen very far, and kids are not stupid so they’re not going into it as much,” he said.
“Nationwide, we’ve got almost a 40% decrease in graduation rates for athletic trainers, so it’s a massive shortage.”
Rep. Matt Simpson, R-Daphne, a member of the Sunset Committee, asked King what the starting pay was in Alabama for athletic trainers, to which King said it was between $48,000 and $53,000 a year.
“So you’re requiring a master’s degree to come out to $48,000 to $53,000, and you’re wondering why (there’s a shortage)?” Simpson said.
“We could come up with all these legislative bills and spend government dollars to make sure that we give you guys grants to pay for the gap, but if you’re requiring a master’s degree to be an athletic trainer and you’re wondering why kids don’t want to go to school for four-to-six years to make $48,000, that’s a position that I don’t you want the Legislature involved in because that’s just bad government.”
King told Simpson that he shared his frustration, but that the new master’s degree requirement was set by the Board of Certification for the Athletic Trainer, a national entity that certifies athletic trainers that the Alabama Board of Athletic Trainers is bound by state law to follow.
“We can change laws for Alabama if we need to,” Simpson said. “If we need to make sure that you all aren’t following a national board because if we’re hurting because some other states can offer more, we may need to address that.”
Low pay has been among the most frequently cited areas of concern among athletic trainers across the country, according to a recent survey by the National Athletics Trainers’ Association and the American College of Sports Medicine. Higher pay for athletic trainers in the industrial industry and the armed forces was also found to be a contributing factor to shortages of trainers for schools.
“I would like to see some type of change or recommendation from you guys on what we need to do to recruit more people that’s not just the government should just write a check,” Simpson said.