Minnesota has a troubling shortage of athletic trainers. 

"I oversee all the middle school and high school athletics at our 15 middle schools and seven high schools," said Andrea Schmidt, the athletic director for St. Paul Public Schools. She tells WCCO her district is in a pickle.

"It's not a surprise we're in this spot. I've seen it coming, other schools have seen it coming," said Schmidt.

At the end of last school year the private orthopedic company that provided athletic training services to the schools let her know they couldn't continue.

"They struggled to provide the amount of trainers we needed at our schools and that's just due to an athletic trainer shortage," said Schmidt.

And it's not as simple as just finding someone else.

"The feedback we're receiving is all the same, is that there's such and athletic trainer shortage right now that as much as they would like to take us on they just don't have the means right now," Schmidt said.

She added that other schools seem to be running into the same problem.

The Minnesota Athletic Trainers Association says of the middle and high schools they know of, only 49% have an athletic trainer providing some level of service.

"Nationally we're kind of behind the curve and then within the geographic space, we're even more behind the curve with that," said Kate Taber with the association. 

"An athletic trainer is trained in cardiac emergency response, heat illnesses were trained in the signs symptoms and recognition," said Taber. "That's one of our biggest missions is to make sure that we are keeping our student athletes safe."

But Kate points out what others echoed: there's a pipeline problem.

"They're running around pretty crazy and working long hours," said Taber.

"I think the pay and the hours sometimes aren't as attractive to folks that are looking to work in the medical field," said Schmidt.

"I do know there are districts that have postings for the position. They're saying hey we're willing to fund it  –  no applicants," said Dr. Maria Ryan who serves as the co-chair of the sports medicine advisory committee for the Minnesota State High School League.

"To truly make our high schools optimized it would be to have an athletic trainer available at every high school," said Ryan.

"For parents I would make sure your high school has an athletic trainer that by far is the most important thing," said Doug Casa, CEO of the Korey Stringer Institute, a leader in safety research, education and advocacy for high school athletics.

"We're keeping track of all 21,000 high schools in America to see if they have an athletic trainer or not because they're the first line of defense if we're going to keep tragedies from happening in high school sport," said Casa.

KSI has worked to put millions of dollars towards putting athletic trainers into underserved communities without the means to pay for them.

Schmidt tells WCCO that budget constraints are a concern.

"In the past these agreements tend to not charge the school as much and it's a great partnership," said Schmidt. "There's not usually a huge dollar amount expected from schools so for us to go in a different direction and say hey let's look into hiring our own athletic trainers – that would come at a huge cost to the district that we haven't in the past had to account for."

"Having something legislatively dictated is really the best means of having something activated," said Taber.

"I would say it would be a huge help for us to be required to have athletic trainers and there is no pushback on our end to having athletic trainers," said Schmidt.

Ryan confirms there is a debate about suggestion versus requirement when it comes to athletic training services.

"If you don't have an athletic trainer are we going to say you can't have a football program?" said Ryan. "The athletic trainer services are invaluable to our athletes families and community as a whole."

"As we ask our students to work that hard we need to make sure we're providing them with some type of medical professional accessible to them," said Schmidt.

St. Paul Public Schools is currently handling the athletic trainer shortage by hiring independent contractors to cover varsity competitions.