Manatee High Football Players Beat the Heat

Manatee High began football practices this week, and as muggy air temperatures settled over south Florida on Thursday, athletes were looking for ways to avoid heat issues that have left some high school athletes with a range of heat related symptoms and illness. A few student athletes have even died this year.

Heat and humidity have always been a part of summer football practices, but as coaches and trainers have learned about the dangers of heat exhaustion, methods for dealing with the heat have changed. Athletes who get overheated aren't pushed to go harder or told to wait on a water break. 

At a practice field just outside Hawkins Stadium on Thursday, water buckets were set up throughout the field. Unlike football practices of the past, when some coaches allowed players a a couple of water breaks at best, athletes were granted unlimited access to water.

Manatee head athletic trainer Chris Peters checked the heat index on his digital sychrometer: 105 degrees. As players busted tackling dummies, ran routes and doused themselves with water, Peters looked for signs of heat exhaustion, such as a change in personality, specifically "stupidity," Peters said, where lineman constantly make a wrong block.

"Sometimes a player will notice," Peters said, "and they'll come up to me and say something's wrong with another guy."

On Wednesday, the Associated Press and Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported 15-year-old football player Montel Williams who played for Gurdon (Ark.) High collapsed at an evening practice and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

Manatee High coaches and traineers are aware of a number of heat-related deaths this summer.

It doesn't take long for an athlete to know what he is in for.

"Right when you go out on the field you feel the heat and go, 'Ugh,'" junior halfback Anthony Lauro said.

A typical pitfall for athletes during preseason practices is pushing themselves too hard to win a position. Players fail to admit their exhaustion, a mistake that can lead to a fatality.

"You just drink a lot of water and really don't go as hard because you don't want to kill yourself," junior wide receiver Jajuan Pollock said.

Manatee wide receivers coach Chuck Sandberg recalled different ways to defeat heat when he played high school football in the late 1970s.

"If you needed water you weren't tough," Sandberg said. "We got one water break. One time in 1977, I was just given some salt tablets."

Those giant water buckets also have become a bit more sophisticated. On Thursday, ice packed the top of the bucket closest to the linemen. Below the ice was a copper coil that snaked through the water. The ice conducts freezing temperatures through the coil, and water is cooled as it passes through the coil and out the spigot.

Manatee also has mist fans at its practice field and two ice tanks in its locker rooms. Following practice or in an emergency, players can soak until their core temperature becomes normal. Peter said the ice water also helps squeeze lactic acid out of the athletes' bodies and contracts their lower bodies, which can further prevent heat-related issues.

"You just look for signs of dizziness and other heat issues," Peters said. "If I'm doing my job, and paying attention, deaths from heats can definitely be prevented."

Manatee avoided sun-searing heat until Thursday.

"It rained the first three days," Manatee High coach Joe Kinnan said. "We wore shorts and the sun never came out."