It has been a busy week. We finished up day 4 of practice this morning, and things are looking better. For some reason, the kids came into practice a little flat, and all the coaches picked up on it immediately. I was hollering "Pick It Up" quite a bit myself. Its funny how this works, but you can almost put your finger on it. It generally involves almost all the kids at once...the concentration level was down. We practice early in the morning to avoid the afternoon thunderstorms and stifling heat as the sun moves more overhead. But, it is still hot....sauna hot.
As you might imagine, dehydration is a big issue here in the sauna we call Florida. As coaches, we are trained to recognize symptoms of dehydration before it gets out-of-hand with our athletes. A couple years ago, Sebastian River High School (SRHS) actually had a young player die from heat stroke on the practice field....all directly related to the 9th grade athlete being dehydrated. Coaches are not immune to the Florida heat and humidity either...hell I still cut grass in a plastic bag to condition myself for the heat battle. I also enjoy a good sweat a couple times a week. But this is dangerous and I know it.
Years ago, there was not much water available on a football field at all. The old-school thought was that if a player was denied water at practice, he would condition his body to not need water during a football game...it would make you tougher. Instead, a football coach (or trainer) would hand you salt tablets instead. They were supposed to stimulate your saliva glands. I can't tell you how bad the salt tablets tasted when you were already dying of thirst. Cramping? Salt tablets. Throwing up? Salt tablets. We just learned to play through the classic signs of being severely dehydrated...while damaging our kidneys at the same time.
Occasionally, we would see a little bit of water on the field. Every now and then a coach would drag a garden hose out to the practice field, but our intake was strictly limited to a couple sips... we always wanted (and needed) more. Sometimes, our athletic trainers would have these big buckets filled with iced water down towels with iodine to treat injuries. When someone got hurt, we would steal the towels and suck out the water....dirt, sweat, iodine and all. Hey...it was better than nothing. During games we would have water on the field. The ten gallon jugs were filled with a early version of some sort of sports drink....but someone would salt the hell out of it. I hated it....and I still cannot drink anything like that today. I just wanted water and nothing else. I often wonder if my issues with kidney stones have anything to do with salt tablets? I guess we will never know.
Today things are much, much different. There is always water on the field. We continue to educate ourselves, the players, and hopefully the parents on the importance of hydration at home as well. We preach that energy drinks are your enemy, and they will kill you. A few years ago, people actually believed that pickle juice was the secret formula for preventing cramps on the field, and this fable was debunked over and over. An athlete needs water...at least a gallon a day this time of year. Water he takes in today will be used at practice tomorrow. Hydrating the day of an event is too late. An athlete needs to take care of his body on and off the field. Coaches are here to make sure that happens on our end.
On Tuesday, I had to become certified (again) by the NFHS (National Federation of High Schools) as a coach. Since we work onfield with the kids, we took courses on: Concussion: Heat Illness-Dehydration: Sudden Cardiac Arrest. I have taken such courses many times before in my day, but it is always interesting to see how things have changed in the medical field since I first started. I often wonder: "How in the world did we survive playing in the early days?"
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