Heatstroke deaths prompt new high school football rules, as global warming causes hotter summers
By Neela Banerjee, Los Angeles Times
31 August 2012 MARIETTA, Georgia – The August afternoon was a merciful one. The sky above Marietta High School was overcast, and by 3:30 p.m., temperatures hovered in the low 80s as football practice began. Still, like high school football coaches all over Georgia, Marietta’s coaches were leaving little to chance. Responsible for the health of the 100 students on the field, athletic trainer Jeff Hopp stood by a $2,500 sophisticated temperature gauge on the sidelines to measure the heat, humidity and solar radiation. He set up water stations and every 15 minutes or so coaches made the athletes stop and drink. On the pavement above the fields, Hopp opened a white canopy, and under it, he set up a large black plastic bathtub filled with water and ice. If a player showed signs of heatstroke, the tub would be his first stop before an ambulance arrived. Since the mid-1990s, summer football practice, especially the preseason tradition of two sessions a day, has turned more dangerous for high school athletes. From 1994 to 2009, the average number of high school football players who died every year from heatstroke tripled to three from one in the preceding 15-year period, according to a recent analysis of high school heat-related deaths. Last year, seven boys died. Research suggests that two factors are converging to increase mortality: rising obesity among high school football players and hotter, more humid summers as the climate changes. And while Hurricane Isaac drenched other parts of the South this week, it brought little relief in Marietta, where thunderstorms were offset by temperatures that stayed in the high 80s. Recognition is growing of the potentially profound health effects of climate change. Tropical diseases are spreading north from their normal geography. In Maine, public health officials are seeing Lyme disease more often, as the warmer summers make northern New England more hospitable for ticks. In climate adaptation plans, states such as California have included public health initiatives, including opening more air-conditioned cooling stations. Georgia has had the most deaths of any state among high school football players, with eight from 1994 to 2011. Now, along with six other states, Georgia has issued practice plans to avoid heat exertion that all high school football teams must follow or face sanctions. The new rules call for teams to acclimatize players to the heat, as opposed to the old approach of drilling hard from the start of preseason, often for four hours a day and in full pads. The new rules in Georgia, Arkansas and elsewhere do not mention climate change, but they amount to a detailed response to a public health problem exacerbated by rising temperatures. The rules show how communities can adapt to climate change, even without overtly acknowledging it, once they understand what’s at stake. “You can discuss the new rules as player safety, because if you bring up climate change, all of a sudden, it becomes political,” said Andrew Grundstein, lead author of the football mortality study and professor of geography at University of Georgia. “But as a climatologist, I’m really pleased that states are starting to implement the rules because as you start seeing more hot days, I think it’s smart policy.” In Georgia, coaches prefer not to discuss climate change. But to Patti James of Little Rock, Ark., the heatstroke her son Will suffered in August 2010, during a three-week stretch of 100-degree days, drove home new realities. “We got the clue that every summer is going to be really hot,” James said, adding that there have been more than 24 days with 100-degree temperatures in Arkansas this year. “This is becoming the norm in the South, and we can’t do what we did 40 years ago. I’m so tired of old men coming up to me and saying, ‘We never got to drink water when I played football.'” […] The recent push for new football practice rules has emerged after the deaths of players and the publication of research like Grundstein’s. His study shows that from 1980 to 2009, most of the 58 deaths occurred in the Southeast, where heat and humidity form an oppressive mix. Athletes died mostly during morning practices, considered safer because of the relative coolness. But humidity is higher then. The nearly 2-degree rise in global temperatures since the late 19th century has contributed to “roughly 7% higher absolute humidity,” said Steven Sherwood, director of the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. “This means that a 1-degree temperature rise from global warming will have as much effect on athletes training in very humid conditions as would a 3- or 4-degree rise from normal weather variations,” Sherwood said. […]
