Skip to main content

In the Midst of a Concussion Crisis, Why Does Oklahoma Artificially Limit the Number of Athletic Trainers?

Several Oklahoma news outlets have recently taken a deep dive into the problem of concussions in high school football. Stories have examined the inadequate data tracking of the Oklahoma State Schools Activity Association (OSSAA), an effort to legally require schools to keep an ambulance on site at football games, and even the differences in rules between high school and college ball that encourage quarterbacks to take additional hits rather than throw the ball away. 

Notably absent from the coverage has been mention of the overly restrictive licensing regime the state has set up for athletic trainers, which artificially restricts the supply of athletic trainers when they are apparently sorely needed.

 My research on the subject found that half of Oklahoma’s counties (38 of 77) do not have a single licensed athletic trainer. Others present an even more dire situation, reporting that only 13% of schools have a full time athletic trainer and only 32% even have a part time trainer. Of those counties that do have practicing athletic trainers, 10 have only 1 in the entire county.

This dearth of athletic trainers is unsurprising given the relatively cumbersome process of obtaining a license. Budding athletic trainers must obtain a 4-year college degree to be licensed. Contrasted with Oklahoma’s paramedic training requirement (itself unnecessarily onerous) that can be completed in just over six months, the 4-year degree requirement seems a little overboard.

What’s worse, the way Oklahoma’s licensing law is written creates a perverse incentive to avoid seeking the advice of a medical doctor. The law defines athletic training as rendering certain services to athletes “upon written protocol from the team physician or consulting physician to effect care.” Accordingly, any activity undertaken without consultation of a physician falls outside the scope of the license, and thus cannot be prosecuted for unlicensed practice. A volunteer or coach who effectively serves as the trainer on the team puts himself at risk of prosecution if—and only if—he follows a doctor’s protocol. For a high school with strained resources or located in an area without a licensed trainer, it is likely this practice occurs regularly.

The spate of recent news coverage of concussions has examined the usual policy prescriptions proposed by interest groups and politicians to address such hard to manage problems (more legal mandates, more funding from the state, more data tracking), but there is a simpler option that never gets talked about. Rather than erecting unnecessary barriers through lengthy and cumbersome licensing schemes, let’s reduce the obstacles to training and deploying athletic trainers. That is, let’s get rid of the licensing requirement all together.

Our athletic trainer licensing law unnecessarily restricts otherwise qualified individuals from providing needed services to our kids. Consider a retired military medic who wishes to volunteer as an athletic trainer for her son’s high school football team, at a school without the resources to hire a licensed athletic trainer. Under current law, it is a crime for her to volunteer her services, unless she does so without following a doctor’s protocol. The athletes on the team must make do with unguided assistance, or simply do without any assistance at all. How does this promote health and safety?

Concussion protocols are actually fairly easy to come by, and have been successfully implemented at the college and pro level in recent years. The information (and training) is available. It shouldn’t take more than a short, once a year training course to get that information and training to every high school in the state. It certainly doesn’t require a 4-year degree. What is needed to make protocols successful is a dedicated person on each team whose primary job is to see them through.

If the Legislature wants to make a dent in the concussion problem, it can do so - without spending a dime - by repealing the athletic trainer license.

Benjamin Lepak is Legal Fellow at the 1889 Institute. He can be reached at blepak@1889institute.org.

Popular posts from this blog

COVID-19 Exposes TSET’s Uselessness: Let’s Get Rid of It

After more than a month of COVID-19 house arrest , Oklahoma is reopening. However, the government-created economic disaster that shutdown orders have caused will be studied by epidemiologists, economists, and other social scientists for decades to come. In the meantime, we have to deal with the consequences as they occur, everything from a lack of toilet paper on store shelves (hopefully, that’s over) and hair that’s grown too long to what will undoubtedly be a host of bankruptcies. In the meantime, there is a timely question that truly ought to be answered in Oklahoma. Where has TSET (Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust) been in this time of crisis? Recall that TSET was created as a quasi-independent government by constitutional amendment as part of the 46-state tobacco settlement wherein tobacco companies agreed to pay states as reimbursement for the Medicaid costs of treating tobacco users for tobacco-induced illnesses. Instead of using the money to reduce taxes for Oklahom...
Read more

America’s Public Schools Fail Black Children, School Choice Empowers Them to Overcome

A consistent feature of racists through history is that they have fully understood the power of education, or the lack of education, as a tool of oppression. Extraordinary efforts were taken to keep black slaves illiterate, including killing those who deigned to learn to read. After the Civil War, black schools were frequent targets of attack. It should be no surprise that the longest and hardest fight in the Jim Crow South was over public school segregation. Segregationists worked to keep African Americans from lunch counters and in the back of city buses, but they fought like hell to keep black kids out of white schools. As our nation convulses with discussions of systemic racism, nearly all of the focus has been on questions of policing and the use of force. This is appropriate, of course. But I’d like to highlight a less discussed institution for which a strong case can be made that systemic racism prevails: public education.   An accepted definition of “systemic” or “structu...
Read more

The Bravery of Those Who Died to Defend Us Highlights Our Cowardice

Memorial Day commemorates those who died in military service to our country. These people died not for a chunk of land, for the natural resources available on that chunk of land, nor for any such simple material possession. They died for an idea, a way of life, as well as for each other. We used to be the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave. Now we're the land of the lockdown and the home of the trepidatious.   The bravery of heroes past has been replaced by dirty looks for those who dare to go outside without a mask - even in their own cars – where mask wearing, at best, can only be justified as a sign of solidarity . But solidarity for what? Certainly not freedom. That solidarity happens when people stand shoulder to shoulder against the jackboots who would take someone to jail for what now appears to be the shocking desire to earn a living to feed a family. What follows are three stories of heroism, and four contrasting acts of cowardice. May the deeds of the...
Read more

What if Legislators Were Licensed? Well, Just to Make a Point...

1889 Institute, as a general matter, objects to occupational licensing. We have written about it more than any other subject. The scant benefits simply do not outweigh the enormous costs to consumers and entrepreneurs, and  the  burdens that disproportionately impact the poor.   It must be noted that the remainder of this post is a work of satire. This should be obvious to anyone who has read even one of our papers, but each of the proposals below has an analogous provision in Oklahoma licensing laws. To those supportive of government-created cartels, these proposals might sound almost reasonable.  A material threat to the public safety and welfare has for too long gone entirely unregulated, unrestrained and unchecked. This menace has the power to corrode not only mere industries, but to corrupt the entire state economy. It’s no overstatement to say that the practitioners of this perilous profession hold the power to destroy democracy as we know it. After a...
Read more