Legal concerns and lack of experience among coaches usually are what lead schools or youth groups to create training rules. But while many states require some form of training for school coaches, programs usually touch only on helping athletes avoid injury, the CNHI News Service study showed.

Half the states require teachers to take courses in basic first aid or sports first aid before becoming coaches, and 34 require first aid classes for coaches not trained as teachers.

Coaches usually meet these requirements by taking online courses from the American Sport Education Program or the National Federation of High School Associations. The first aid programs address injury prevention but focus mainly on how to handle medical emergencies.

Seven states — Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Virginia — have no training requirements at all, the survey found. Another 12 states require no additional training for teachers who become coaches.

Only three states — Iowa, Wyoming and Connecticut — require specific training in sports injury prevention.

The world outside interscholastic sports is even less regulated. Some national youth sports groups do not require training for coaches. Even if they did, local leagues are not always affiliated with national groups.

New coaches prompt training

Schools began adopting training rules when they started looking for coaches outside the teaching staff, says Roch King, who coordinates the graduate coaching program at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.

“In the past, all coaches used to be physical education teachers,” King said. “As the number of teams grew and the physical education faculty diminished, other teachers stepped in.”

Now, King says, the majority of scholastic coaches are hired with no formal teaching education or experience.

“It has become an apprenticeship model,” he said, “where coaches have played or worked for other coaches.”

School administrators in more than half the states said they enroll coaches in classes that teach the principles of responsible coaching and first aid.

The American Sport Education Program is behind many of these classes, said spokesman Jerry Reeder. The program, which has been teaching coaches for 25 years, developed courses. It also helped the National Federation of High School Associations design its own courses in coaching fundamentals and first aid, which are now required in 28 states, with another 12 states saying they plan to adopt the classes.

“The thing we try to impress on our coaches is the physical safety of an athlete has to come first,” Reeder said. “The next thing is the mental and emotional safety of an athlete.”