Seven Ways to Kill a Football Player

Trying to outcoach the late Vince Lombardi, the high school football coach drove his young players unmercifully, seemingly oblivious of the temperature that a hot, late-August sun had pushed over the 90DEG mark. Finally, he ordered them to top off their preseason drill with a quick run around the field. Halfway through the run, one of the players collapsed, and the doctor who examined him quickly discovered why. The youngster's body was not wet with perspiration but hot and dry. He had suffered heat stroke, and only by rapidly cooling his overheated body with cold towels did the doctor prevent him from suffering serious brain damage or even dying.

Heat stroke, which often occurs when the body produces more heat than it radiates away, can produce kidney failure, coma and death. It has killed some 50 high school and college football players during the past decade, and will strike down dozens of others in the next few weeks as coaches start preseason drills to get their teams into shape. The irony, says Dr. James P. Knochel, a kidney-disease expert from the Veterans Administration Hospital in Dallas, is that these incidents are unnecessary. Heat stroke, he writes in the A.M.A. Journal, can be prevented if coaches and trainers use common sense and remember that active athletes must sweat in order to cool off and must quickly replace the fluid they lose. "Would the coaches operate their automobiles with half-full radiators?" asks Knochel. "The trouble is, the radiator in the car doesn't sweat. But people's radiators do, and they have to have their fluid volumes maintained to prevent overheating and destruction."

Most coaches know this and take steps to protect their players against heat stroke. But some apparently reason that only those who survive the rigors of preseason workouts are worthy of playing for them. For these coaches, Knochel facetiously suggests seven surefire ways to kill a football player. They are:

1) Schedule practice sessions between 2:30 and 6 each afternoon, so that players will be exercising during the hottest part of the day.

2) Provide no water during training sessions or make it so unpalatable that no one will drink it. This assures that players will have no way to replace the fluid they lose through perspiration.

3) Encourage players to swallow salt tablets before practice. This promotes dehydration and increases thirst.

4) Help overweight linemen lose weight rapidly by making them exercise while wearing plastic suits. This guarantees that they will perspire profusely and exposes them to the risk of dangerous dehydration of body cells.

5) Make players wear full uniforms, complete with helmets, during hot weather to help promote overheating.

6) Don't stop wind sprints at the end of each practice session until a sizable number of players vomit, have muscle cramps or collapse.

7) Attempt to improve players' performances with amphetamines. The drugs prevent a player from realizing when he is fatigued and assure that he will keep trying long after physical exhaustion dictates that he should quit.

Any coach who follows Knochel's prescription carefully is almost certain to cause a tragedy. But a coach who exercises common sense instead is more likely to win games. It takes about two weeks of gradually increasing exposure to condition an athlete to perform vigorously--and safely--in hot weather. Coaches who realize this will have better teams for their trouble. Those who do not may find some of their players missing at the opening kickoff.

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