The person on the sideline who decides whether an injured player comes off. In the United States the job title is athletic trainer.
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The median pay is about $62,520 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $48,180 at the lower end to about $88,760 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
5 to 7 years after high school, on the usual route.
$45,000 to $125,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
It depends where you work. You need a license, certificate or registration in Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Wyoming. Elsewhere there is none to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Very high demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$62,520
Bottom tenth
$48,180
Top tenth
$88,760
The national median is $62,520 a year. The bottom tenth earn $48,180 or less and the top tenth $88,760 or more, in 2025 figures. The federal survey lists this job as athletic trainer, which is the American title. Athletic therapist is the Canadian name for close to the same work.
$48,180 to $55,130
What the bottom tenth to bottom quarter of athletic trainers earn, 2025
High school athletic trainers and college assistants usually start in this part of the range. High school jobs are often hired through a clinic or hospital that contracts with the school district, so your paycheck comes from the clinic even though you work at the school.
$78,490 a year
The median in California, the highest of any state
Hawaii ($76,320) and New Jersey ($76,210) come next. Alabama is the lowest, at $46,940. Head athletic trainers at universities, pro teams and physician practices are at this end. Professional sports hires very few athletic trainers. Industrial and occupational settings, where companies put athletic trainers on the factory floor to prevent injuries, are a quieter route.
Roughly, all in
$45,000 to $125,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a cheap bachelor's degree, community college credits then an in-state public university, plus an accredited master's in athletic training where a graduate assistantship covers part of the tuition and puts you on a team's sideline while you study. The high end is four years at the top of the in-state range followed by two master's years paid in full. Both include the Board of Certification exam, $375 to register plus a $75 or $100 application fee, and a state license that most states charge for and renew every year or two. The certification is national but the license is not, so moving states means paying again.
File the Free Application for Federal Student Aid every year. Many master's programs cover part of the tuition with graduate assistantships that put you on a team's sideline while you study.
High schools
A common first job.
Colleges and universities
Long hours, travel with the team, strong benefits.
Clinics and physician practices
Steadier hours than a team schedule.
Industry and the military
Factories, warehouses and military bases hire athletic trainers to keep workers from getting hurt.
Performing arts
Dance companies and touring productions employ them too.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A master's degree is now the entry point. The bachelor's route to this job has closed.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Biology, anatomy if offered, and get yourself into the training room as a student aide for your school's teams.
Bachelor's degree
4 years
Exercise science, kinesiology, biology or anything with strong anatomy and physiology. Keep your grades up, because accredited master's programs are competitive.
Accredited master's degree
2 years
A professional program accredited by CAATE (the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education). Classroom work plus supervised clinical rotations with real teams and patients.
Pass the certification exam
Final semester
The Board of Certification exam. Your program director has to confirm you before you can sit it.
Get your state license
Weeks
Apply to the state board where you will work (every state except California has one). Then keep your certification alive with continuing education every two years.
Biology and anatomy
You will be naming muscles and ligaments for the rest of your life.
Chemistry
Required for most exercise science and kinesiology degrees.
Physical education and team sport
Understanding how a sport moves people is half the diagnosis.
Psychology
Telling an athlete their season is over is a conversation you will have often.
The Board of Certification says 49 states and DC (the District of Columbia) regulate athletic training. California is the one state with no license or registration. Most states ask for the board's credential, written as ATC (Athletic Trainer Certified), and California employers usually do too. Athletic training is recognized as an allied health care profession, which is why athletic trainers work under a physician's direction and can evaluate and treat injuries. This is a completely different job from a personal trainer, who needs no license at all in most states.
Public universities with accredited programs
Search the accreditation list before you apply anywhere. A degree from an unaccredited program will not let you sit the exam.
Three-plus-two programs
Some schools let you roll a bachelor's and the accredited master's together and finish in five years instead of six.
Graduate assistantship schools
Programs attached to a university athletics department often trade sideline work for tuition and a stipend.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Strength and conditioning certification
Makes you more useful to a team and is often required for combined roles.
Emergency and tactical care training
Opens up military, fire and police contracts, which hire quietly.
Industrial and occupational health
Companies hire athletic trainers to cut workplace injury costs. Predictable hours, no weekends.
Physician practice extender
Working inside an orthopedic clinic, casting, screening and managing rehabilitation between appointments.
Student aide hours in the high school training room
Start at 15 or 16. It is the clearest signal on a college application for this field.
CPR and emergency care certification
Required anyway, and it never hurts to hold it early.
A driver's license and a tolerance for buses
You travel with the team, often overnight.
Spanish
Useful in a lot of American training rooms and clinics.
Plenty of people certify as an athletic trainer, work a few years, and then move on to physical therapy school, physician assistant school or medical school. The clinical hours count, the anatomy is already in your head, and admissions committees like applicants who have had to make decisions with an injured person in front of them. It is one of the better launch pads in health care.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Afternoons and evenings, not mornings. Open the training room after classes for taping, treatments and rehabilitation exercises. Run through the day's injury checks. Then practice or a game, where you watch every play and get to an injured athlete within seconds. You decide whether they go back in, and sometimes you have to say no to a coach and a crying 17 year old at the same time. Afterwards, ice, paperwork, calls to parents and doctors. Home late. Saturdays in season are not yours.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
O*NET OnLine (the Department of Labor's occupation database) counted about 35,200 athletic trainers in 2025. It projects growth of 7 percent or more by 2035, much faster than average, with about 2,400 openings a year.
An athletic trainer is a health care provider, licensed in every state but California, who evaluates and treats injuries under a physician's direction. A personal trainer writes workout programs and needs no license in most states. The names sound alike and the jobs are nothing alike.
You used to be able to certify with an undergraduate degree. The profession moved entry-level education to the master's level, so the accredited programs you apply to now are all graduate programs.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Sport and fitness first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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