








































EDITORIAL 

 

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Copyright © by Indiana State University                                                                                Clinical Practice in Athletic Training  
All rights reserved. ISSN Online 2577-8188                                                                              Volume 5 – Issue 1 – April 2022 
 

The State of Work in Athletic Training: A Conversation 
K. Ellis F. Mair, EdM, ATC*; Lindsey E. Eberman, PhD, LAT, ATC† 
*Go4, Philadelphia, PA; † Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN 
 

 
Key Phrases 
Work place culture, employment, work force, employer, 
employee  

Correspondence 
Ellis Mair and Dr. Lindsey Eberman, 567 Nth 5th Street, Terre 
Haute, IN 47802. 
E-mail: Ellis.Mair@gmail.com  
Twitter: @go4ellis   
 
 
Full Citation 
Mair KEF, Eberman, LE. The state of work in athletic training: 
A conversation. Clin Pract Athl Train. 2022;5(1): 1-7. 
https://doi.org/10.31622/2021/0005.01.1.     
 
 
EDITORIAL 

Recent employment reports have suggested that 
18% of healthcare workers left their respective 
professions since the onset of the pandemic and 
another 12% have been laid off.1 Although 
current data about the impact of the pandemic on 
the athletic training workforce has not been 
released from the Strategic Alliance, an early 
study indicated that 20% of athletic trainers were 
out of work.2 Editor-in-Chief, Lindsey Eberman, 
engaged in a conversation with Ellis Mair, Co-
Founder and Vice President of 
Medicine/Community at Go4 (formerly Go4Ellis) 
about the state of work in athletic training. 

LEE: What is your current sense of work in athletic 
training? 

KEFM: Historically, I think this has always been an 
interesting question because the title of athletic 
trainer applies to many different people doing 
many different jobs.  We have athletic trainers 
that work clinically with patients in traditional 
athletics settings but also we’ve seen a big 
expansion into physician practice, the performing 
arts, public safety and the industrial setting.  We 
also have people working in education and 
research that are still athletic trainers, however  

 

their day-to-day looks much different than 
someone who works providing direct patient care 
every day.  I think the definition of “work” in 
athletic training has changed tremendously. 

LEE: Do you think that it gives us an advantage in 
terms of retaining folks in the profession, the 
variety that one could explore, because of those 
different ways that we can define ourselves as 
athletic trainers? 

KEFM: Yes. But I think it's commonly misunderstood. 
I don't know if we do the best job of selling all the 
different skills we have and how our skills can be 
used in various settings. I think it is amazing that 
our patients can be anyone from an astronaut to 
an acrobat or factory worker or even a middle 
schooler. But I don't think that is necessarily 
something the general public knows. Sometimes 
athletic trainers put on scrubs and go into an 
Operating Room and sometimes you are teaching 
in a classroom. We all look very different from 
setting to setting and I think one of the harder 
aspects about our profession is to describe how 
we fit into each of these settings and understand 
that we have the ability to transition from one 
setting to another.  

LEE: I also think we actually struggle to 
communicate it within our own profession. That 
seems to be obvious with so many athletic trainers 
leaving the profession. And that's a historic trend, 
not just a pandemic trend. We have not taught 
people resilience, or what options, they have 
available because so much of professional 
preparation is in the college/university and 
secondary school settings cause those are clinical 
sites of convenience. Exposure outside of that is 
infrequent in professional preparation and I think 
an early career athletic trainer has have a lot of 
courage to go into a brand new setting and 

mailto:Ellis.Mair@gmail.com
https://doi.org/10.31622/2021/0005.01.1


The State of Work in Athletic Training: A Conversation 

 

 
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Copyright © Indiana State University   Clinical Practice in Athletic Training 
All rights reserved. ISSN Online 2577-8188                                                                              Volume 5 – Issue 1 – April 2022 

explore, especially in the current financial climate 
and likely student debt. I think as much as we 
struggle to communicate it to the public, we're 
equally struggling to communicate it to ourselves. 

KEFM: I agree and experienced this first hand in 
the pandemic.  When the pandemic hit, the Go4 
platform lost a million dollars in business in a span 
of four days. At the time, we were largely based 
in youth sports and every single tournament, 
practice and camp in the country was cancelled.  I 
called my colleague and said, “Half of the users 
on the platform are healthcare workers who are 
currently sidelined. This is a perfect time for them 
to get involved.” And we got straight to work 
because we had over 10,000 healthcare 
professionals that could be activated with the click 
of a button and I just had to find someone who 
believed me.  I had some amazing conversations 
with athletic trainers who were reaching out to me 
to say, “Let me know where you need me and I 
will go. I know I can help and I want to be 
involved.”  People were calling from Texas and 
Oklahoma offering to fly across the country to 
help in New York! We were working around the 
clock emailing every department of health trying 
to get someone to take our call. I ended up in 
meetings with the Health Commissioners, Chief 
Nursing Officers and Directors of HR for large 
urban health systems.  I was having conversations 
with people who essentially were saying, “I have 
no idea who you are, what you do as a profession 
and why the heck should I trust you right now?”  

Convincing them to trust us wasn’t easy at first but 
when it came down to it, it was a simple 
conversation about skills and what we could to 
help them.  We were able to pivot and ended up 
working primarily in the public health realm, 
whether it was in hospitals or screening and testing 
sites, we saw the same athletic trainers that were 
used to working camps excelling alongside nurses 
and physicians in the pandemic.   I think that may 
changing, but I don't think that a lot of the  general 
medical community understands how we can fit 
into the healthcare hierarchy and what a massive 

help we can be to them and their practice.I think 
that communication and advocacy is as important 
a skill for athletic trainers as many of our hard 
clinical skills. 

LEE: You mentioned having to pivot with the 
pandemic. Do you see currently a worker shortage 
in athletic training and why doesn't it feel like 
we're not talking about it more? 

KEFM: There definitely is and I believe this is 
partly because of how people managed their 
athletic trainers when the pandemic began.  In 
early April of 2020, we ended up interfacing with 
the Human Resource Director of New York City 
Health and Hospitals. Her daughter was an 
athletic training student down in Florida, so while 
she had a nursing background understood who 
athletic trainers are and how they could help New 
York City Health and Hospitals. This organization 
is the largest hospital system in the country and 
they were utilizing athletic trainers from the very 
beginning.  If it could happen in New York, there 
is no reason it shouldn’t happen everywhere.  

The other large healthcare organizations that are 
having trouble today are the ones that neglected 
to empower and utilize their athletic trainers.  
Historically they’ve employed athletic trainers as 
loss leaders and had never realized the actual 
value of athletic trainers. Whether it was a 
departmental decision or an administrative one 
they chose to furlough or lay off athletic trainers 
instead of utilizing our skills in another way.  All 
over the country, athletic trainers we were setting 
up the facilities for safe patient flow, conducting 
screenings and temperature checks and even 
doing COVID testing and vaccinations. But these 
organizations chose to furlough their athletic 
trainers and now that sports are back, they can’t 
find the ATs that used to work for them. Some 
people faced geographic challenges where their 
cost of living was so high that they could not stay 
in their communities without employment.  

We also have seen large expansion of the 
industrial setting in the past few years.  As the 



The State of Work in Athletic Training: A Conversation 

 

 
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Copyright © Indiana State University   Clinical Practice in Athletic Training 
All rights reserved. ISSN Online 2577-8188                                                                              Volume 5 – Issue 1 – April 2022 

pandemic raged on, the need to protect our 
supply chain workers became very real and 
demand for athletic trainers here grew.  Many 
athletic trainers changed settings; some on a per 
diem basis but for many it progressed into a full 
time job.  While there may be a worker shortage 
in some settings, there is growth in others.  

We've also seen a lot of people working per diem 
until they can find a job that they like. The demand 
for healthcare workers has grown over the last 
two years and therefore we've seen those pay 
rates go up astronomically.  Per diem work has 
been able to keep a lot of people afloat and 
work a flexible schedule that works for them while 
they can find the right job to go back full time. 

Some organizations also realized how much they 
needed an athletic trainer. Traditional athletics, 
although paused, did not go away so there is still 
a need in college and secondary school athletics. 
But some athletic trainers got used to a different 
approach to working and are asking themselves, 
“Do I want a regular schedule or more control over 
my schedule, or do I want to go back to what I 
was doing before?” 

LEE: That really fits people with a dynamic life or 
those with a family. Per diem seems to have given 
people the opportunity to earn money but at their 
own will versus a traditional athletic training 
setting, which often makes the worker feel like 
they are at the will of others.  

LEE: How do you think the workforce itself has 
changed in the last two years? Demographics of 
the population but also individual people? How 
have we changed as athletic trainers within the 
healthcare system? 

KEFM: A lot of people liked the transition to work 
from home. Many athletic trainers were shifted 
into the student health or physician practice realm. 
They were engaged in the public health and 
prevention side. Anecdotally, people seemed to 
really like that shift. They may have been doing 
more healthcare administration and organizations 

relied on them to be decision-makers. The other 
leaders “at the table” were looking at athletic 
trainers saying, “Who are you? You see things 
through a completely different lens and you're 
great at this!” I think that that's been awesome. It 
has been really amazing to watch friends excel in 
positions of leadership that they suddenly found 
themselves in. We haven’t always been afforded 
the opportunity to be in the boardroom and this 
helped a lot of athletic trainers realize their range 
of skills too.  They were put in positions that they 
succeeded in and going into it they didn't 
necessarily realize that they could do the things 
they ended up doing. 

LEE: That is an in interesting observation. Recently 
the BOC produced the Practice Analysis 8th 
edition,3 which serves as the blueprint for the 
certifying exam, characterizing the knowledge, 
skills, and abilities for entry-level practice. The 
weight of the Healthcare Administration and 
Professional Responsibility (7th ed.) domain,4 now 
the Health Administration and Professional 
Administration (8th ed.) domain, decreased from 
13% to 8%.3,4  Two years of a pandemic, where 
people had to go work from home, build policy, 
implement policy, have a policy for when people 
broke policy, develop testing procedures, figure 
out to enhance safety in a facility. Where I would 
have thought there would be an increase, there 
was a 5% decrease! 

KEFM: That is shocking. I feel like so much of what 
we’ve done in the pandemic is to help develop 
policies and then rip them up and then create 
another one based on whatever change was 
thrown our way. 

LEE: How do you think employers have changed? 
You mentioned inviting athletic trainers to the 
table, so obviously there's been some openness 
about how athletic trainers can contribute to the 
bigger picture, but do you feel like employers are 
valuing athletic trainers more or not? 

KEFM: I think this is a case by case situation.  We 
talked earlier about how many different jobs exist 



The State of Work in Athletic Training: A Conversation 

 

 
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Copyright © Indiana State University   Clinical Practice in Athletic Training 
All rights reserved. ISSN Online 2577-8188                                                                              Volume 5 – Issue 1 – April 2022 

that are all considered working as an athletic 
trainer.  There are some people that were able to 
forge new relationships as they gained new 
colleagues in student health service or at their 
local Department of Public Health.  I also think that 
these new colleagues will continue to seek out that 
athletic trainer's input because they were a 
reliable source of information and a creative 
problem solver.  

Some employers are realizing how much they 
need athletic trainers and they’re willing to pay 
more than they would have in the past to have 
them come back to work.  I also think that we are 
starting to dig in and realize that we are not 
willing to come back for what we were previously 
earning, especially if they were mistreated prior 
to or during the pandemic. 

LEE: Retention data has taught us that there's a 
salary at which athletic trainers are willing to put 
up with the typical chaos and work-related stress 
attached to the sport industrial complex… I think 
that we have to figure out what that point is. The 
National Athletic Trainers’ Association just 
published the Executive Summary of the 2021 
Salary Survey. Although the summary requires 
some methods clarification, the general premise is 
that the average salary is around $61,000 and 
that number has risen about $10,500 since 2011, 
but the gender gap is concerning (-$11,000).5 
Unfortunately no data are provided for 
minoritized populations, at the time of this 
publication. What is the salary someone should be 
earning to also accept the unstructured work of 
traditional athletics? 

There are so many jobs available in the 
traditional settings without sufficient workers to fill 
the jobs based on popular listservs and the Career 
Center. I'm wondering whether we're going to hit 
a tipping point in these traditional settings where 
employers are willing to reconsider compensation 
models, much like we have seen in the per diem 
compensation. Unfortunately, we had seen trends 
of assistantships shifting to internships that exploit 
the least experienced athletic trainers, instead of 

converting these positions to full-time staff 
positions. The patient need is still there, so I think 
we need innovation in both compensation and 
healthcare delivery structure. We need to identify 
what our priorities are and consider how to focus 
our staff if we are unable to bring folks back in 
and compensate them accordingly.  

KEFM: I think candidates have the pick of the litter 
right now, and I think that it's very important that 
they know that. 

We've talked about this for years and it's really 
only addressing half of the problem, “Say no to 
low paying jobs!”.  But that is not the solution. This 
blame is misdirected and cannot be solely 
assigned to the person taking a low paying job. 
We, the athletic trainers that are behind the 
hiring, need to stop offering low paying jobs.  
Employers have a responsibility to pay their 
employees appropriate salaries for the work that 
they are being asked to do.  

Candidates are going to be graduating soon and 
there are jobs everywhere. I think they have a lot 
of leverage to negotiate. Especially with the 
proliferation of  legislation that requires an 
athletic trainer to be present if you have certain 
activities occurring at a facility, it is no longer a 
luxury to have an athletic trainer, it is a legislative 
necessity. When those employers are struggling to 
find someone to fulfill those duties, they are going 
to have to offer more so that they can find 
someone willing to do the job for an appropriate 
pay rate. We've seen the average rate on Go4 
rise from $35/hour a few years ago to $50/hour 
and some rates are as high as $100/hour in some 
areas.   It has been a long two years for the 
profession and if an employer wants someone to 
get off the couch at the end of a long hard work 
week, they are going to have to pay them a rate 
worth their valuable time.  

I think graduating candidates need to know that 
there are going to be a plethora of jobs available 
to them and they shouldn’t take something that 
they are not excited about. There are great 



The State of Work in Athletic Training: A Conversation 

 

 
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Copyright © Indiana State University   Clinical Practice in Athletic Training 
All rights reserved. ISSN Online 2577-8188                                                                              Volume 5 – Issue 1 – April 2022 

employers and great work experiences out there 
and you’ve got to do the work to find one that 
meets all of your needs. 

At the Annual Meeting in June, there will be 
dozens of companies who are looking to hire 
athletic trainers.  They will be looking to recruit 
graduates right there on the Expo floor.  For the 
longest time, positions were easy to fill but times 
have changed and these companies are having to 
put in the work and reconfigure these jobs if they 
want to find the best candidates. 

LEE:  Employees should be able to make decisions 
in their best interest. I work primarily with folks 
who are in their early career and many of them 
want to go into college/university athletic training 
and I'll be curious to see how this setting adapts. 
Historically these job postings require previous 
college/university setting experience; often 3 to 5 
years. However, we lack evidence to support that 
criteria  as leading to retention of improved 
health outcomes. It seems arbitrary and I am not 
sure there will be enough candidates with those 
experiences, at least in the short-term hiring cycle. 
They will see far more early-career athletic 
trainers applying and securing those positions, but 
this setting does not seem to have demonstrated 
the same radical adaptability the other settings 
have when it comes to increasing compensation 
and adjusting workplace climate. I would not 
encourage any of our early-career athletic 
trainers to take those positions at the rate being 
offered.  

How do you think candidates can leverage 
themselves in the landscape?  

KEFM: First, they cannot be afraid to negotiate 
and tell the employer what you believe you are 
actually worth.  Companies may be posting the 
position for $41,000 but if they interview 10 
candidates who say they are worth the national 
average at $61,000, they are going to have to 
go back to Human Resources. The employer will 
have to advocate directly to Human Resources 
that great candidates are unwilling to work for 

their listed salary. Candidates need to know the 
number that works for them. Employers need that 
feedback and they’re going to have to reassess. 

LEE: Compensation has long been our problem in 
athletic training, but compensation is not the only 
indicator of job quality. I tell students that they 
need to weigh three things; geography, 
autonomy, and compensation. If the most 
important thing to you is the ability to have your 
weekends off and climb mountains. Then you 
should be looking for a job that geographically 
allows you to do that. If you want to be in control 
of your time and how you focus your attention, 
choose a job that gives you that autonomy. But 
sometimes these three factors are in conflict with 
one another, but the important thing is for a 
candidate to know what their priorities are. They 
get to decide, but they should certainly not be 
sacrificing all three.  For me, I prioritize autonomy, 
and in that I sacrifice geography, living away 
from family. 

In my work with early-career athletic trainers, I 
have noticed they are so fearful of negotiating. I 
think they think the employer will take away the 
offer, the moment we push them a bit. They are 
offering the job they have. As an employee, we 
have a responsibility to push the employer higher, 
for long term professional health. I encourage 
folks to negotiate for at least 10% more even if 
the salary is a good offer. The higher your salary 
goes the more valuable everybody around you 
becomes because eventually those salaries will be 
raised to match yours.  

You mentioned people having an affinity toward 
work from home, some of the administration 
components of athletic training, and other kinds of 
workplace climate changes that have happened 
as a result of the pandemic that are an advantage 
to the employee. Let’s talk more about those.  

KEFM: We got out of the rhythm of the chaos and 
the overwhelming hours we typically work. We 
got used to a more normal schedule and I think 
now that athletics are back, it has been really 



The State of Work in Athletic Training: A Conversation 

 

 
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Copyright © Indiana State University   Clinical Practice in Athletic Training 
All rights reserved. ISSN Online 2577-8188                                                                              Volume 5 – Issue 1 – April 2022 

hard to adjust. I think it’s making departments 
realize they are wildly understaffed and more 
than they have been in the past. I'm hoping that 
we will see more jobs created because people 
are realizing the need is not matched by the 
workforce, in terms of total personnel. 

I also think people realize the importance of 
personal time. This is something candidates should 
be asking on interviews as well. “What does 
vacation actually mean? Can I take it when I want 
it? Am I allowed to engage in life events?” I think 
athletic trainers do not think labor laws apply to 
us, but the issue is practice not policy and this 
culture must change. People are realizing that 
time is theirs and asking for it back. People are 
being more protective over their time, and I think 
that's a good thing. Candidates can really 
advocate for paid time off in an appropriate way 
and use it when they need and want to, not at the 
convenience of the employer or team they work 
with. 

LEE: Athletic trainers have historically said, “Rain 
or shine, sick or not, I’m willing to come to work.” 
Now, I hope every human on the planet no longer 
feels an obligation to work sick. The ramifications 
are far bigger than you. 

What do you think employers could be doing to 
embrace some of these changes and ensure that 
workplace culture matches worker need? 

KEFM: Retaining personnel is less expensive.  If 
someone is leaving, it is to their advantage to 
conduct an exit interview and ask why that person 
is leaving and how they could improve the 
experience of working there. Staff that stay and 
thrive creates an overall better experience for 
everybody. They should be gathering information 
from candidates, those leaving, and those staying. 
Find out what their needs are and figure out how 
you can meet them.  

We are seeing workers across all kinds of 
industries organizing for better work 
environments. Look at the Amazon workers 

unionizing and the nurses moving into traveling 
positions. People are not going to work for low 
wages or in abusive cultures anymore, because it 
is just not worth it.  To create a successful 
workplace, you need to listen to what people 
want and what they need, and how you can make 
their lives better. We know happy healthcare 
providers provide better patient care.  

LEE: Some of this includes rethinking how we 
deploy staff. WE have, for far too long, provided 
coverage instead of healthcare and this is a 
turning point, if we allow it to be, to consider how 
to deliver athletic healthcare differently.  

KEFM: Absolutely. We do not always need to be 
focused on coverage. People find more fulfillment 
in working with patients one on one and seeing 
them improve.  

LEE: I think it's about identifying what the need is; 
what is the need and then organizing staff to meet 
those needs. I also am hopeful that folks will 
realize that we shouldn't be the only person 
assigned to a team, which often means the only 
provider available to those patients. There are 
many challenges within the American healthcare 
system, but a strength is personal choice. Our 
traditional approach to deploying personnel in 
athletic training has withheld choice from patients.  

KEFM: Those models also allow us to leverage 
specialization. We don’t have to be able to know 
everything and it is nice to have colleagues you 
can rely on for complex patient cases. It creates a 
collaborative environment that can improve 
workplace culture. 

LEE: Ideal athletic healthcare has generalists, 
advanced generalists, specialists, and sub-
specialists; all of which bring important 
contributions to the system. I’m looking forward to 
this shift in how we approach athletic training.  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

Special thanks to Christine Benz and Justin Young 
for their transcription support.  



The State of Work in Athletic Training: A Conversation 

 

 
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Copyright © Indiana State University   Clinical Practice in Athletic Training 
All rights reserved. ISSN Online 2577-8188                                                                              Volume 5 – Issue 1 – April 2022 

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