Little is known about the athletic trainers' moral reasoning and the actual teaching of ethics in the athletic training curriculums. Considering that athletic training education program directors and certified athletic trainer clinical instructors have a responsibility to teach ethics, important questions arise. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the athletic training education program director's and certified athletic trainer clinical instructor's cognitive ability to apply the five ethical principles of the National Athletic Trainers' Association Code of Ethics. Sixty-nine of 106 randomly selected certified athletic trainers (AT) associated with clinical and classroom education (65%) completed the Athletic Training Principled Reasoning Inventory, a tool to measure moral reasoning relative to the NATA Code of Ethics principles (Cronbach .69 - .84). Respondents were asked to answer five scenarios using a Likert response of strongly agree to strongly disagree. Question one pits the certified AT against choosing to tell player A's condition to player B's father, a general surgeon. Sixty five percent chose SD while 35% chose D. Question two had the certified AT dispensing over the counter medications to an underage player. Sixty-four percent chose SD, 25% D, 9% N, and 3% A. Question three had the certified AT choose from accepting money from a local physician to boost her budget versus sending athletes to this physician. Sixty-one percent chose SD, 30% D, and 9% neutral. Question 4 challenged the certified AT to fairly evaluate his certified AT friend whom he supervised and was not completing assigned work. Seventy-five chose SD, 20% D, and 4% neutral. Question 5 challenged the certified AT, who was married to the university's basketball coach, to weigh athlete care with athletic participation status. Eighty-one percent chose SD, 13% D, 4% N, and 1% A. In all questions respondents chose other than SD 18% to 39% of the time. For each of the questions, if proper education occurred, certified athletic trainers used principled reasoning, and they were educated in the preferred pedagogical form of teaching ethics they would have easily and absolutely answered a strongly disagree. Perhaps athletic training curriculum program directors may want to examine how ethics education is being implemented. By developing a self understanding of personal values through reflection, practice, and communication a certified athletic trainer can begin to provide quality ethics of care education. Keyword(s): athletic training, professional preparation, standards and ethics