North Side HS keeps players cool

FORT WAYNE Ind. (WANE) - As the school year approaches, coaches are starting to get their players onto the field. North Side High School is one of them.  The recent heat and humidity has many worried about the safety of the players.  However, the coaches are well aware of the dangers of too much heat and sun.  They are now very weather wise, using some of the weather tools used by our meteorologists.

Today at the start of the Redskins' practice the temperature was 87 with a heat index of 95.  At this level, if you aren't careful, heat exhaustion can occur quickly, especially for these boys in heavy football gear.  But each day before practice, the athletic trainer is outside checking the conditions, making sure it's not too hot for practice.

He has his own thermometer and he'll check the current temperature and the humidity.  That information is then taken to the IHSAA website where he puts that information into a heat index calculator .  Now he can see how high the heat index is.  They then use that weather information to determine how practice goes.

Joshua Cummins the athletic trainer says "If we're going to go in full pads we try to keep it below 90-95, if it gets hotter than that we start to take off some of the pads, shoulder pads, if it gets up near 100 we'll come inside."

The head coach takes this weather information and can determine if practice needs to be altered.  Usually that just involves more breaks or extra water.  The school also has food, water, and sports drinks available to the players between practice to help keep their energy up.