Marietta's coaches often shift practices to the evening to avoid the intense afternoon heat. Or the players often take the field in helmets and football pants, leaving their shoulder pads on the sideline. As the wet bulb globe temperature reading falls, they'll strap on their shoulder pads for full contact practice. A 2007 study by Georgia Tech found that taking shoulder pads off helps the body keep its core cool.
"We were working with stricter guidelines before and we never cancelled a practice," Hopp said. And that's not because players in the northern half of the state have an easier climate for practice, Hopp said. "When you're looking at the wet bulb globe temperature, across the state it only varies by a couple of degrees."
Since 2003, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has operated under rules similar to those now in place in Georgia. Players not only had fewer cases of exertional heat illnesses, but their orthopedic injury rate also improved.
"It's been a real positive on the collegiate level," said Michael Ferrara, an athletic trainer at the University of Georgia and co-author of the study that informed Georgia's heat rules. "Our guess is the same thing is going to happen on the high school level, that you're going to see a reduction in the number of injuries around this preseason period, ... and still go forward with a great football season."
Including Georgia, seven states have adopted heat safety standards similar to the NCAA and NFL: Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, North Carolina, New Jersey and Texas, according to the Koery Stringer Institute.
A quick knee and a swig of water
To see how the risk of heat-related illnesses will change under Georgia's new rules, the GHSA has agreed to fund Cooper and Ferrara's research for three additional years.
"We need to be really careful that we don't assume that even with all the safeguards and precautions that followed, that we're going to avoid any instances of heat illness," said GHSA Executive Director Ralph Swearngin. "What we are hoping is that we will keep them at a minor level because we're aware of what to look for."
At Camden County High School, the beginning of the Aug. 2 practice looked more like a chaotic dance rehearsal, except for the large lineman crawling to the center of the field, sans hands, because he was late for practice. There was little contact, though the players were in full pads. Linemen, however, practiced their footwork without helmets during one drill. Players took breaks nearly every 10 minutes. Some breaks were brief, just a quick knee and a swig of water. For longer breaks, players huddled under shade.
Then the hitting began. A chorus of barking coaches rose and fell with each jarring collision. Dozens of parents in the parking lot formed an unblinking audience. Water was available as players rotated in and out of the huddle. Helmets did not come off.
The players are concerned about getting enough reps, but they're confident they'll be ready, even as they prepare to play a team from Florida that doesn't play by the same heat rules.
"I feel like it kind of set us back," said Brice Ramsey, the team's senior quarterback, who has committed to play college football at the University of Georgia. "Over the summers the last couple of years we were in shoulder pads and going to camps and stuff. This year we had to wear no pads and weren't in helmets half the time."
Senior fullback Jaccob Johnson said that, to make up, "we're just practicing harder, going at everything 100 percent and trying our best."
That drive to shine under the Friday night lights is so powerful that some players put in overtime, never mind the heat and humidity. The heat rules apply only to coach supervised practice. What players do on their own time is unregulated.
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16 Comments
Add Comment"Some grumble that South Georgia's trademark football might lose its punch", much better to send a couple kids to the lord than lose a game. If Jesus needs a blood sacrific to ensure a winning season then who are we to disagree?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTexas football has always been hot...SciAm is nuts...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGod I hope so! Finally a good side effect of climate change. I say get rid of the college and professional crap too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe they should do a study to see if being spoiled with A/C can make you more susceptible to stroke.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes the military suffer from any of these same problems when they send their 'maggots' out on drills?
By the way, a 95 degree day will still be 95 degrees even with climate change; so, how can it make it worse? They've already got advisories not to play when the temperature exceeds a certain degree.
No need to use pejoratives; you're making the article writer look better and without contributing anything substantial to the topic. Why not point out what makes it unintelligent?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPosting rational comments dissecting the vapidity of ignorant illogical articles is unnecessary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm with pokerplayer on this one.
I think that they need to ban lattes and triple shot americanos also. The coffee growers are deforesting the jungle and this is creating mad-made climate change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso outlaw bio-fuels as it is causing starvation.
And outlaw windmills as they kill birds.
What say you?
Rude foolish comments does nothing to help solve a very serious problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat DO we really do about the climate getting so hot?
There's no easy fix.
Use solar to clean more water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClean water is subsidized MORE than gasoline. and it's cost a lot more per gallon!!!
We have created life styles that will not be sustained in the future...look at all impulsive advertising, it's not just grandiose, it's foolish nonsense.
Marketing has stuped to a false of feeling good to sell wasteful junk that should not have been make in the first place..
How many people live like that, no one I know?
Let's think about reality.
Find ways to enjoy life with less pollution.
There's a thousand things going unreported in physics, chemistry, astronomy, etc. and we get another 'fluff' article from 'Unscientific American'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCurious...if temperatures are not as hot next summer will it be cooling? No...it will dismissed as 'weather'.
By the way...summer in Western Canada is slightly below average temperature. Global warming is not based on a season in the USA in an region that is less than 1% of the world's surfac,
The title should be "New Rule Restricts Football Practice".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr ... "Hot Weather In Southern Georgia In August? Who Woulda Thunk It?
Dump the helmets, dump the pads, and stop scrambling brains. And since high school football is merely a sport, and not a war, don't risk lives by practicing in the heat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis change has nothing to do with climate change but a change in the understanding of health w.r.t workouts in the heat. Basically competitiveness has risen between sports programs over the past 40 years and the result has been tougher and longer training sessions for athletes. This then resulted in deaths which made people (and then coaches) finally realize that it was a bad idea to overdue it in the heat. A shocking revelation... don't ride a horse to hard or it will die.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot everything is about climate change and dubious connections doesn't help the argument.
I wasn't going to post a comment. But this article is absurd.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI thought Scientific Anerican was supposed to be about Science. Real, honest to goodness, objective, factually based science. Years ago I actually respected this magazine.
What's happened to my Scientific American? Has it been taken over by an escaped gang of renegade elves from the North Pole?
Look at:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=8&year=2011&filter=1&state=9&div=0
Is the issue really temperature? Perhaps we are just getting less acclimated to heat and/or more aware of the dangers.
This article doesn't belong in a scientific journal. Maybe a political journal or a comic book.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this