First of all my condolences go out to the young man's family, his teammates and coaches. I saw in one of the replies statistics on heatstroke and heat related deaths in high school football. I have some observations on that based on my experience as a football and conditioning coach on the high school level.
I played high school football in the late 70's-early 80's and August practices went much like this:
- Two-a-day practices with each practice being 3 plus hours, 2 hour break in between practices
-Salt tablets were given before and during practice
-Water breaks were offered approximately every hour
-Strenous conditioning at the end of each double day practice
Occasionally one of the bigger players would struggle but I don't recall any heat-related issues that were serious.
Once I began my teaching career I coached other sports but was removed from the sport of football for 23 years. Several years ago I became involved in football once again, doing some coaching but involved heavily in the conditioning part of the program and the changes in today's player was striking:
-All athletes are much more sensitive to the heat, even your better conditioned athletes
-Today's athletes need more frequent water breaks and need to be very closely monitored when doing any type of strenuous conditioning. they can go from slightly struggling to severely struggling quickly.
- Of course the athletes with a higher body fat percentage really struggle in the heat and have to be watched diligently
I asked myself how did things change? It's not really any hotter or more humid? Practices are shorter, breaks between two-a-days are longer, why do so many athletes struggle despite having conditioning all year long? Which by the way wasn't offered when I played.
My guess would be the amount of time many kids spend inside in a air-conditioned environment would be one factor. The body needs to be in the heat to adapt to it, so being inside all day will only acclimate you to a 70 degree, low humidity day.
Kids in general move less in today's society mostly due to technology. In most neighborhoods you don't see as many kids outside playing as you did 20 years ago. Therefore they are generally less fit and less adapted to the conditions outside.
It was always interesting to talk to the athletes who handled the heat and humidity really well. Many of our kids were farm kids who made hay, cared for animals and worked outdoors all time. Others had lawn care businesses in which they did manual labor in the heat many days. Those were the kids who did very well and had the least amount of problems.
The bottom line is that anyone coaching today needs to know that the kids we coach now must be handled much differently than how many of us were coached or conditioned in the past.
