More than one-third of college athletic trainers say coaches influence the hiring and firing of their schools' sports-medicine staffs, a finding that counters an NCAA-recommended protocol urging medical staff to make decisions about athlete health independent of coaches and administrators.
Among the 1,796 athletic trainers who answered a recent survey, more than 48 percent said their school was not following the NCAA-directed guidance . Nearly one in five respondents said a coach had played an athlete who had been deemed medically ineligible to participate.
The National Athletic Trainers' Association sent survey questions to more than 9,200 athletic trainers who work in all divisions of NCAA, NAIA and two-year schools in an attempt to generate baseline data about how institutions are following NCAA guidelines.