Heat Related Illness in Interscholastic Football: What Coaches and Athletic Administrators Need to Understand

At the start of high school football seasons reports surface that interscholastic football players had succumbed, in practice session, to varying levels of heat-related illnesses. While most of these athletes are able to recover from heat-related illnesses, some are not as lucky as there were four heatstroke deaths at the high school level as recently as 2008. In 2009, an interscholastic high school football coach was indicted on the charge of reckless homicide after one of his players fatally collapsed due to heat stroke during a practice. Because severe heat-related illnesses are entirely preventable (Binkley, Beckett, Casa, Kleiner, Plummer, 2002; Godek, Godek and Bartolozzi, 2005; Howe and Bowden, 2007), dialogue as to whether head football coaches and athletic administrators are aware of the issues that may cause the heat-related death of a player at the interscholastic level is warranted