The alarm has been going off a little earlier than usual at the Dennis house these days. Actually, a lot earlier.
“Four o’clock,” says Huntington football coach Stephen Dennis.
It’s not because he wants to grab a cup of coffee and watch the sunrise. He’s got to get up and go to work so that he can be there by 4:30 a.m., turn the lights on, and be ready when the first player shows up around 4:50 a.m.
The alarm is going off a lot earlier at the Ballew house, too. And the Brown house. And a few others.
These days, it’s rise, shine and get to football practice. Once that’s finished, it’s time for geometry class!
Drive down Kings Highway before the sun comes up and you’ll see Stacy Ballew putting his Byrd Yellow Jackets through a before-school practice. Northwood’s Austin Brown has been mixing up his practice times, but 6:30 a.m. is in the rotation.
An informal survey of coaches will reveal that football practice times could be 7 a.m. or 7 p.m. Though they’d rather be spending their time being creative of how to beat a zone blitz, rather than being creative on how to schedule around the state-mandated ban on practicing in what are considered extreme conditions.
And if you ask around, you’ll find out that they are hot about it. (Pun absolutely intended.)
You may never have heard of a wet bulb calculator, but they have.
You may never have heard of then Remy Hildalgo Act, but they have.
It’s not as if they aren’t aware of player safety; it’s just that there is a general feeling that there is some selective enforcement when it comes to high school football.
“(It’s) OK to play 12 travel ball (baseball) games on Saturday, but not high school (football),” one coach said.
Another coach took that up a notch. “The fact that games are exempt entirely from wet bulb regulations is asinine. If the genuine intent of the laws and regulations we are having to work around is to protect our kids, then games are no different.”
And finally there is this: “No one from the state has ever regulated a middle school practice,” a third coach said.
The wet bulb calculator is an apparatus that every school has and is designed to “estimate the effect of temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation on humans using a combination of temperatures from three thermometers.” There are different levels in the calculation chart – black, red, yellow and green.
If you noticed some of the football practice facilities were empty on Thursday, that’s because it was a Black Flag day, meaning no outdoor activities. (Many spent that time in the gym or weight room.)
But it is often pointed out that the calculations can be manipulated. Put the measuring device on a turf field in the direct sunshine and the reading will be a lot different than if you put it in the shade. Cloud cover can also have an effect.
The issues run deeper than whether it’s a Red Flag Day or a Yellow Flag Day. Coaches have to go through yearly summer certification programs in order to give them guidelines on how to handle extreme conditions.
Yet when extreme conditions come along, it’s as if all of that was for nothing.
Coaches will tell you that they know their players and what their needs are. No one is holding back water breaks because someone dropped a pass in the team offense session. Players are told to never hesitate when they feel something is going on.
But then there is the Remy Hidalgo Act (HB184), passed in 2021, which states “relative to the health and safety of students who participate in school-sanctioned athletics; to provide for an emergency action plan; to provide for coaches certification program; to provide for sports injury management program.”
Hidalgo was a Denham Springs lineman who died of a heat stroke in 2020. That was in September, when the season had already begun.
A tragic situation, to be sure, but the issue for most is that coaches are being asked to prepare their teams to play in “Black Flag” conditions without being allowed to practice in those same conditions.
Unless, of course, they want to start playing games at 6:30 a.m.
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com