Trainers' group suggests heat rules

By Paul J. Weber - Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO — High school football teams should eliminate two-a-day practices during the first week of August, when heat stroke has proven particularly deadly, a leading trainers' group said Thursday in a report issued less than two months before the sweltering rite of passage begins at thousands of schools.

The National Athletic Trainers' Association said its recommendations, which include longer breaks between practice and more time for players to ease into contact drills, are not radical changes and closely mirror policies already in place at the Division I college level.

The association also pointed to the story of Pleasure Ridge Park football player Max Gilpin, who died last August after he collapsed on the first day of practice. Prosecutors charged his coach, David Jason Stinson, with reckless homicide. Stinson has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for trial in August.

"Things aren't going very well at the high school level. We've had a couple very bad years," said Douglas Casa, director of athletic training education at the University of Connecticut and co-author of the report for the Dallas-based association. "This wasn't done for the convenience of coaches."

The executive director of the Texas High School Coaches Association, D.W. Rutledge, said he declined an invitation to appear at a news conference announcing the proposals. Rutledge, who won four state championships in Texas, said he first wanted to review the guidelines with his membership.

Scaling back on two-a-days amounts to lost preparation time, he said, and that's something that could concern coaches in football-crazed Texas.

In Lexington, Tates Creek Coach Mike Harmon said coaches have been cautious in hot weather, starting in mid-July with conditioning in shorts, T-shirts and helmets before gradually working up to helmets and pads in August.

"A lot of people are getting away from traditional two-a-day practices anyway," Harmon said. "Two-a-days now may include a film session or lifting weights, rather than two actual practices."

Since 1995, at least 39 football players across all levels have died from heat-related causes and most of those cases happened in early August, said Dr. Frederick Mueller, director of the National Center for Catastrophic Injury Research at the University of North Carolina.

At least 42 states have some sort of heat illness-prevention guidelines, said David Csillan, an athletic trainer at Ewing High School in Ewing, N.J., and report co-author. He said the recommendations put forth are geared toward better acclimating high school students across all sports to the heat.

In Kentucky, high school coaches will begin in June, taking an online course and test covering athlete safety, as mandated earlier this year by the General Assembly. Starting with the 2009-10 school year, there must be a coach who has passed the course at every practice and competition.

Before the new rule was put in place, the Kentucky High School Athletic Association has required that players have a pre-season physical and that coaches restrict practice when the heat index is higher than 95 degrees. Practice and play is banned when the heat index reaches 105 degrees.

At all times in hot weather, coaches are directed by the KHSAA to watch athletes carefully and give them "as much water as they desire." When the heat index is higher than 95 degrees, water breaks are mandatory.

Many of the national proposals are stricter versions of rules already in place. In Florida, contact drills are prohibited during the first three days of practice. Under the recommendations by the athletic trainers association, teams shouldn't begin full contact until the sixth day of practice.

In Texas, schools must take a minimum one-hour break between practice during two-a-days. The report calls for a minimum three-hour rest and would limit the second practice during the first week to only a light walkthrough without helmets or pads.

Rutledge said a three-hour break could actually force players into the heat, since some teams start practice early as 6:30 a.m. to avoid the hottest parts of the day. He also stood by the current guidelines that Texas coaches follow.

"Our coaches take it seriously, and do a good job with it," Rutledge said.

Curbing severe cases of heat illness was a prominent topic at the athletic trainers' convention in San Antonio. Also Thursday, a Georgia-based company unveiled a tiny heat sensor that can be placed inside a football helmet to monitor a player's body temperature.

Jay Buckalew, founder of Hothead Technologies Inc., said the system warns coaches and athletic trainers when an athlete is becoming dangerously overheated. But at about $99 a helmet, the cost is likely to be prohibitive to many school districts.