Over the last five days there have been three reported deaths due to the start of high school football practice. All of them have occurred in southern United States where heat index's are jumping off the charts. The truly sad part of the deaths are that they where all highly preventable.
Football coaches are all faced with the daunting task of taking kids, who may or may not be in physical condition to play an extremely violent and exhausting game, and preparing them for the season ahead. To often though they lose sight of the fact that less than 1% of these kids are ever going to play a single down of competitive ball after high school. They get caught up in the notion they are in their own little NFL and that every game is life or death. This mentality permeates the practice field and causes these overzealous coaches to push their kids in the hopes that they acclimate them into superstars on Friday night. The tragic result is a handful of kids die from hyperthermia every year.
Hyperthermia is the condition by which the body becomes so overheated the normal mechanism for cooling the body down, sweating, becomes unable to regulate the core's tempature. Early waring signs of hyperthermia are nausea, vomitting, dizziness, confusion, pale blue skin, swollen lips, and dry skin. The methods for reversing the process are simple enough. Immersion in water, finding shade, re-hydradting, spounging the head, neck and extrmities, are all effective means. There is however, a point of no return where so much damage has been done to the brain and internal organs, that death will be the result.
Considering what science knows about heat re-lated death it is inexcusable that these tragedies continue to occur. The simplest of measures could save lives-
-Move the start of practice back 2-3 weeks.25% of deaths occur during the first 3 days of practice in August
-Move the time of day practice occurs, wait until nightfall
-86% of all deaths are linemen. Move them indoors for the hottest parts of practice!
-Make sure coaches are informed of the warning signs leading up to hyperthermia
-Make better access to water and do not limit how much the athlete intakes. The body knows what it needs!
Hopefully the tragic deaths that have occurred will not have been in vain. Hopefully coaches across the country will realise that athletes are not demonstrating weakness when they complain of heat and fatiuge durings August practices. They are merley demonstrating the lengths of the human body's capabilities.
