Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 16, 1995 TAG: 9508160065
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``It's bad,'' said Horace Green, Franklin County's coach. ``We've been in and out of pads. We put them on for any kind of hitting and take them off for any other work we've done. We have plenty of water breaks and cool towels.
``This is the worst I've seen in my 18 or 19 years of coaching. Usually you get a break after a day or two. It'll be cloudy or there will be a breeze.''
The temperature reached 100 degrees Monday. Though it was a little cooler Tuesday afternoon, the red flag still flew at Patrick Henry to tell coach Ed Scott conditions were in the ``emergency'' category.
Tim Bane, PH's trainer, uses a combination of temperature and humidity to give him a reading on conditions. Then he puts a flag on a golf cart to tell coaches how they should run their practices.
The Patriots went out Tuesday morning under a blue ``alert'' flag. Just before the second practice started at noon, Bane was flying a yellow flag and as the temperature reached 97 degrees at 12:30 with a humidity level of 72 percent, up went a red flag for emergency conditions. Bane never got to fly a purple ``safe'' flag.
``It's a matter of watching the players. We'll go 10 or 15 minutes and get a water break. That's as long as we try to go,'' Scott said.
``This is the hottest weather I've practiced in. I don't remember it being this hot for an extended period of time. Maybe a day or two. A few years ago we knew it was this hot, but it wasn't at the danger level [because of a lower humidity] that it is at now.''
At Radford, longtime coach Norm Lineburg gave his players a treat Tuesday when he noticed the field being watered.
``We told them to get their pads and football pants off. They had shorts and T-shirts on. They stood under the water for 30 minutes and had a wonderful time,'' Lineburg said. ``They didn't do any horsing around, though. They were too tired.''
The one school that might have had it easier than others was James River, which has finished two-a-day drills and where a late-night rainstorm might have made it a little cooler for Tuesday's morning drills.
``We had a good storm at my house, about 2 inches in my [rain] gauge and it seemed a little better today,'' said Larry Journell, James River's principal.
``The humidity just kind of takes your breath away,'' said Doug Ross, the Knights' coach. ``It's noticeable when we go out at 8 a.m. We knew it was going to be a bad day.
``We have our fair share of kids with asthma and they have to use inhalers even before they go out on the field. We were lucky last week during two-a-days because the temperature rarely got above the 80s.''
Two-a-days have been extended by one day at Cave Spring because of the heat. ``That might seem bad,'' said Knights coach Steve Spangler, ``but we're not working the kids as hard, so we can't get as much done. We'll take a lot of breaks, give them a lot of water. We have a lot of walk-throughs. We're just not going to go as hard.''
Salem coach Willis White remembers his first year as the Spartan boss in 1983 when his team scrimmaged Martinsville at 10 a.m.
``In my mind it was about 100 degrees with high humidity. I thought I was going to pass out. We scrimmaged an hour-and-a-half,'' said White, who refused to call the present heat wave the worst he's encountered.
``It seems like it's this hot every summer. Maybe I'm just getting old. But we don't have to run them as much after practice [for conditioning]. They're getting their conditioning from the heat.''
Bane said one PH player went down from the heat on Tuesday. ``We brought him in, monitored him and put him in the shower. He'll be OK,'' the trainer said.
Bane said the high humidity coupled with the high temperatures has been a reason why coaches must take it easy.
``When the humidity is high, there's moisture in the air. Then, the sweat on a player's body doesn't evaporate. In 1988 [when the thermometer last hit 100 degrees in the Roanoke Valley], it was just the temperature'' with lower levels of humidity.
by CNB