YES: Guidelines are in place to protect players, and more measures may be added.
By Ralph Swearngin
It is tragic and shocking whenever a student sustains a serious injury or dies, whether it happens in an athletic situation or outside athletics. The Georgia High School Association is deeply saddened to have had two students die after their involvement in football workouts this month, and we are concerned about the well-being of our athletes in the future. The GHSA staff is gathering facts about these situations to evaluate whether our current standards for conducting practices are adequate.
All policies of the GHSA are formulated by the 50-member executive committee that is composed of present or former superintendents, principals, athletic directors and coaches. Forty of these members are elected by GHSA schools on a regional basis. The other members represent such organizations as the Georgia Department of Education, Georgia School Superintendents’ Association, Georgia Association of Secondary School Principals, Georgia Athletic Directors Association, and Georgia Athletic Coaches Association. These committee members have many years of experience in the administration of high school athletics.
Over the past 10 years, the GHSA has been proactive in developing health and safety policies for handling incidents of lightning, heat and humidity, and concussion management. The GHSA has relied on input from its Sports Medicine Advisory Committee and has utilized these doctors and certified athletic trainers to conduct seminars for our coaches. Resources provided at these seminars and lots of other information about health and safety needs of athletes can be found on the GHSA web site (www.ghsa.net) on the sports medicine page.
It is important to understand that the GHSA only sets the date that practices may begin in every sport. The decisions about when to begin those practices and how to schedule those practices are left to the professional judgment of coaches and administrators on the local level. GHSA coaches have a great deal of information available to them about the importance of hydrating the players before, during and after workouts — and about modifying or canceling workouts when conditions warrant. Many coaches institute a routine of weighing players before and after practice to identify those who need more hydration.
GHSA bylaw 2.67 sets the guidelines for our schools:
1. Each member school shall have a written policy for conducting practices in all sports during times of extremely high heat and/or humidity that will be signed by each head coach and distributed to all players. The policy shall include, but is not limited to:
● The time of day the practices are to be scheduled at various heat/humidity levels;
● The ratio of workout time to time allotted for rest and hydration at various level of heat and humidity;
● The heat/humidity levels that will result in outdoor practices being terminated.
2. A scientifically approved instrument that measures the heat index must be utilized at each practice to ensure that the written policy is being followed properly.
3. Schools may determine the heat/humidity levels using either wet bulb globe temperature readings or heat index readings.
The GHSA is beginning the third year of a comprehensive three-year study on heat illness and football participation that is being conducted around the state. This study is being conducted by Michael Ferrara at the University of Georgia and is attempting to get scientific data on the relationship of heat and football activities in order to reduce the risk of heat illness during football workouts. After analyzing this data, and after reviewing the facts of these tragedies, the GHSA executive committee will evaluate what changes might be necessary for our practice guidelines.
Ralph Swearngin is executive director of the Georgia High School Association.
NO: Policies are vague and permissive -- and officials still miss warning signs.
By Buddy Morrison
Already this year two Georgia high school students have died from heat exposure during football practice — two deaths that were entirely avoidable and treatable. Over the past 50 years, hundreds of football players have died from heat-related illnesses — with most of those deaths coming in the first couple of days of practice.
Unfortunately, Georgia schools are not doing nearly enough to protect students. The Georgia High School Association and its member schools have failed to properly regulate practice in the heat in order to prevent the onset of heat-related illness. Even after these two recent deaths, Georgia high school coaches are still subjecting children to overexertion in dangerous heat conditions. Even worse, schools are not taking adequate steps to diagnose heat illness. Finally, even when heat illness is diagnosed, schools are not taking simple steps that would make death from heat illness entirely preventable.
In response to the two recent deaths, the GHSA shifted responsibility by noting that it requires individual schools to submit their own written policies for practicing football in the heat. The GHSA began requiring heat policies from its member schools five years ago, when a Rockdale County football player suffered a heat-related death.
The policies drawn up by the individual schools vary widely from district to district. More importantly, the policies do not apply to “voluntary workouts” during the summer — only to “mandatory” workouts. According to the GHSA, both of the players who died were participating in “voluntary workouts” not subject to the GHSA or school regulations.
In 2009, the National Athletic Trainers’ Association issued comprehensive guidelines for beginning football practice that are stricter than the GHSA practice-time rules. The NATA recommends that the first two days of practice be helmets-only and that the next three days be limited to helmets and shoulder pads. The NATA also recommends that an athletic trainer be present at every practice, only one practice per day during the first five days of practice, a maximum of three hours of practice during the first five days, and no consecutive “two-a-days” (two practices in one day) during the second week of practice.
Last week, Temple and West Hall High schools kicked off their football camps with three-a-day workouts, and continued doing so even after Tuesday’s tragic news. Although many schools, including Atlanta public schools, have canceled outdoor afternoon practices during the heat wave, others around the state have not.
Other coaches mistakenly place the responsibility for proper heat acclimatization on the players. The coach of Mount Zion High School attributed heat issues to players “laying on their couch all summer.” Americus-Sumter High School actually depended on the voluntary workouts to get players acclimated to the heat. Coach Michael Pollock observed: “If you let the kids stay home in the air conditioning and let them play video games and watch TV ... they will be in a situation where they’d be in a state of shock to come out in this kind of heat.”
Most schools do not have adequate policies for diagnosing and treating heat illness. This is especially troublesome because heat stroke is entirely preventable if treated immediately but becomes deadly if even 30 minutes pass without treatment.
These tragedies have reminded us that mixing fall football with August heat is deadly. Unfortunately for Georgia’s student-athletes, schools are making football unreasonably dangerous by requiring too much practice in the heat and failing to properly care for players who suffer from heat illness brought on by that over-exertion. Two 16-year-old boys died last week from a condition that was both 100 percent avoidable and 100 percent treatable.
Buddy Morrison of Columbus practices law with Butler, Wooten & Fryhofer, LLP.
