Florida’s student-athletes may be focused on wins, times and personal bests, but behind every practice and competition is another priority: getting them home safely.
Long before the first whistle blows, student-athletes and their families are introduced to that priority via an extensive packet of paperwork. Each year, parents are faced with a substantial stack of forms that must be completed before their child can participate in school athletics. Though the process can seem cumbersome, much of that paperwork and the training accompanying it exists for a reason everyone can agree on, which is keeping athletes safe.
Before participating, student-athletes must complete an annual physical evaluation and satisfy other eligibility and safety requirements. Incoming ninth-graders this year were also required to be screened for heart health via an ECG. Local health agencies partnered with Keys schools to provide these free of charge to athletes whose parents did not opt them out of the test, with the aim being to catch any heart-related issues that are often missed with a routine physical. A stethoscope listens for sounds the heart makes such as valve movement or murmurs, while the ECG goes one step further to detect the heart’s electrical signals.
Athletes and coaches also complete required educational courses covering potentially serious situations they could encounter on the field or court. The free courses, available through NFHS Learn, cover topics including concussion recognition, sudden cardiac arrest, heat illness prevention and sportsmanship. Some athletes may find themselves watching familiar material year after year, but the repetition ensures that each season begins with athletes and coaches being reminded how to recognize warning signs, respond appropriately and protect themselves and others.
Coaches also maintain CPR and AED training, with many having additional first-aid preparation. At public high schools throughout the Keys, certified athletic trainers provide another important layer of protection at many practices and competitions.
In the Keys, perhaps no safety concern is more obvious than the heat.
Florida law and FHSAA policy require schools to monitor environmental conditions during outdoor athletics and modify activities when conditions become dangerous. Rather than relying simply on the temperature displayed on a weather app, schools use Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, or WBGT, which accounts for factors including temperature, humidity, wind and solar radiation to provide a better measurement of the heat stress being placed on an athlete.
As WBGT readings rise, so do the precautions.
At readings below 82 degrees, athletes must receive at least three separate rest breaks per hour. From 82.1 to 87 degrees, those breaks increase to at least four minutes each and chilled hydration must be accessible. Between 87.1 and 90 degrees, activity is limited to two hours, with four separate four-minute breaks each hour; football players are restricted to helmets, shoulder pads and shorts.
Once the WBGT reaches 90.1 to 92 degrees, activity is limited to one hour, protective equipment and conditioning are prohibited and athletes receive five separate four-minute rest breaks. At 92.1 degrees or higher, outdoor athletic activity stops.
The Keys’ longest tenured athletic trainer, Luis Leal, says that the teams he works with go beyond the mandated measures to ensure athlete safety. Last week, as Marathon boarded the bus to their 4 p.m. game on turf in Miami, he handed each athlete a 16-ounce water bottle with electrolyte powder. The Dolphins only had one player go down with a muscle cramp, and that was in the final minutes of the game, despite the heat reflecting off the artificial turf. Their opponents, Leal said, were “gassed by the second quarter, and a lot of them went down more than once.”
The safeguards don’t end with preventing heat illness. Schools must also be prepared to respond immediately should an athlete experience a heat emergency. Cold-water immersion tubs or other approved rapid-cooling methods must be immediately accessible when required, and personnel must know how to use them. The guiding principle in a suspected exertional heat-stroke emergency is to begin rapid cooling immediately before transportation.
The 150-gallon cooling tubs required at athletic sites aren’t reserved solely for emergencies. Leal said many football players and cross country runners also take advantage of them for post-practice cooling and recovery.
Florida’s heat safety requirements are particularly relevant during August, when fall athletes begin practicing and competing in some of the most demanding weather conditions of the year.
Other emergencies require similar preparation. AEDs are kept readily accessible for athletic activities, and coaches and other trained personnel are prepared to use them in the event of sudden cardiac arrest. Emergency action plans help schools establish ahead of time who will respond, where emergency equipment is located and what steps will be taken when seconds matter.
And let’s not forget the bane of last season’s football contests: lightning. Each school must monitor lightning strikes to assure no one is left outdoors when lightning is close by.
“We had to stop for lightning proximity last week multiple times, and during the second week of practices, we had 102 lightning strikes within eight miles in a 30-minute span,” said Leal. “I think that’s a record.”
Equipment provides yet another layer of protection.
Football helmets, for example, are routinely inspected and reconditioned according to established safety standards and removed from service or replaced when necessary. Other protective equipment is likewise inspected and replaced as needed. A helmet or piece of protective gear may look like just another part of a uniform to the athlete wearing it, but maintaining that equipment is part of the larger system intended to reduce preventable injuries.
Perhaps one of the most important pieces of that system is education.
Concussions are not always obvious. Sudden cardiac arrest can occur in athletes who appear healthy. Heat illness can progress rapidly. Teaching athletes themselves to recognize warning signs means safety is not solely the responsibility of the adults standing on the sideline. A teammate who recognizes that something is wrong and alerts a coach or athletic trainer can become an important part of the response.
For athletes, many of these precautions eventually become such a routine part of playing sports that they may barely notice them. But the safeguards are there, waiting for the moments coaches, athletes and parents hope never actually occur. And should the unthinkable happen, Florida Keys coaches and athletes are prepared to recognize the danger, respond appropriately and act when every second counts.
