GHSA sets heat policy for athletic practices

According to the AJC, the Georgia High School Association will now be requiring all schools to have a written policy on athletic practices when the heat or humidity is high. Schools will also be required to have some type of validated instrument to measure heat and humidity on the practice fields.

I suppose this idea has good intentions. Every year, you hear about kids collapsing or dying at or after football practice -- whether it's in Georgia or elsewhere. Still, I remember back when I played high school football in the mid-1980's. It was even hotter then. You may think I'm kidding, but I'm not. It got to the 100-degree mark pretty much every year when I went to football camp at South Georgia College in Douglas, Georgia. It was usually held the first week of August and the heat and humidity would hit us in the face like a hot towel when we walked out the door of the dormitories. We would have a practice in full pads at 6am to try to take advantage of the cooler mornings. Then we would practice in shorts and shoulder pads at 11am. The killer practice, however, was in full pads at 4pm. Then we would have one last practice at 7:30pm in the evening in shorts and shoulder pads. Needless to say, the time between practices was spent resting in the dorms with the A/C turned on high and limitless jugs of cold water within arm's reach.

Inevitably, we would have 2 or 3 players get overheated and/or dehydrated during camp. On multiple occasions, players were transported to the local hospital to get checked out and rehydrated. To me, it was a badge of honor that I made it through three years of camp without passing out or throwing up.

I do suppose the new law provides a layer of protection for the schools (legally speaking) and it does provide some peace of mind for the coaches, the parents, and the players. Still, the heat used to be one of the better ways to separate the wheat from the chaff on a football team. If you didn't fall out, you deserved to be on the team. If you did fall out due to the heat, then maybe football wasn't for you. It is football, after all. It's not supposed to be easy.

I guess we'll see how the new law works out.