LITTLE ROCK—Some lawmakers and school officials are pushing for more medical equipment and athletic trainers after this year’s death of a star Little Rock high school basketball player.

Parkview High School player Antony Hobbs, 17, collapsed and died during a Jan. 2 game. An autopsy later found that Hobbs suffered from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy—or an enlarged heart.

Since then, officials have been urging schools to have defibrillators on site and to hire certified athletic trainers. Now, they’re encouraging the state to fund it.

“It depends on a lot of things,” Sen. Shane Broadway, D-Bryant, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “The economy, what funds are available.”

A bill in the 2007 session that would have allocated $500,000 to help each school district buy two automated external defibrillators failed.

“We just weren’t able to find the money,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sandra Prater-D-Jacksonville.

Last week, the Legislative Task Force on Athletic Trainers said it will seek federal money to pay for athletic trainers at public high schools throughout the state.

A similar effort in Louisiana now has trainers in 40 schools, officials said.

In Arkansas, 39 of the state’s 344 public schools have certified athletic trainers on staff.