There are five high schools in the Ouachita Parish School District, and three of them compete in District 2-5A.
Coaches and players may see themselves as opponents, but their athletic trainers are all on one team, and have the same top priority – keeping student athletes safe.
“We laugh a little bit about this ‘one team, one family’ thing, but that’s the approach,” said Phil Shaw, head athletic trainer at Ouachita Parish High School. “We do it within our five high schools, but it really reaches out to all the athletic trainers in secondary schools in our small portion of the state to where we all communicate.”
The main communication right now is how to avoid heat-related illnesses due to record-breaking temperatures throughout North Louisiana.
“We’ve had nine days over 100 degrees,” said Jarod Floyd, Chief Meteorologist for KTVE News. “We’ve routinely seen the heat index over 115 degrees. That’s been happening for most of the summer. In all honesty, our summer has been more humid than hot, which is actually more dangerous in many ways.”
Shaw, along with Kirk Frantom, Sports Medicine Coordinator and head athletic trainer at West Monroe High School, Richwood head athletic trainer Sheena Galloway, Sterlington head athletic trainer Anna Wigley and West Ouachita head athletic trainer Janssen May, agreed it may not be the hottest summer, but it is when it comes to the hottest consecutive days as they prepare for the upcoming football season.
In 2022, the state passed a law (Louisiana Act 259, Bulletin 135) to address Injury Management Program Rules for Serious Sports Injuries. Included in this law is Serious Heat Illness and Acclimatization.
“There are several things in that law,” Frantom said. “Coaches have to be properly trained on how to manage certain serious sports injuries, sudden cardiac arrest to heat illness to concussions.”
Athletic programs are required to use the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature thermometer to determine the length of practices, number of breaks, and equipment that is allowed to be worn. This component is part of the Korey Stringer Institute that the state of Louisiana adopted in 2022.
The institute, named after the former Minnesota Vikings lineman who passed away from heat exhaustion in 2001, is housed at the University of Connecticut and is renowned for its research and expertise in the areas of heat and hydration, injury prevention and strength and conditioning.
“The Wet Bulb Globe Temperature is a special thermometer that takes in several factors – air temperature, humidity, radiant heat from the sun, wind speed – and it puts out a number which is the accurate measurement of environmental heat stress on our bodies,” Frantom said.
There are three scientifically identified regions for the United States based on warm environmental conditions with Louisiana falling into Category 3. The Korey Stringer Institute emphasizes that when developing guidelines for activity modification using WBGT, it is necessary to include work:rest ratios, length of activity, hydration breaks, equipment to be worn (if applicable), and a level in which activity is canceled.
“We go out and measure 30 minutes before practice, and it puts out a number, and we go to our guide here, and it tells us what we can and can’t do,” Frantom said. “So if it falls in this orange area (87.1-90 degrees Fahrenheit) the maximum practice time is 2 hours. Players are restricted to helmets, shoulder pads and shorts during practice. It is falls within the red (90.1-91.9 degrees Fahrenheit) practice time is one hour, no equipment, and if it falls in the black (92 degrees or above), no practice.”
Wigley sat down with Sterlington head coach Lee Doty this week to discuss practice for next week once student athletes are back in school and certain times are no longer an option. They are both aware that the temperatures and the WBGT index will be higher, therefore adjustments to practice are necessary.
“We pretty much agreed on just wearing shoulder pads for team when they’re going against each other, but for all the rest of the stuff – indo (individual drills), specialty, kickoff – any of those that we’re doing, they’re just in helmets and shorts and their girdle,” Wigley said. “”That way they get what they need done with the banging and get used to having the heat, but then as soon as it’s done, we take it off so they can recover and cool back down.”
Wigley added she keeps ice towels on the sidelines, and mixes up 10 gallons of Powerade before each practice, along with ample water within reach.
West Ouachita’s May recently received the Gordon Reynolds Secondary School Athletic Trainer of the Year award, given annual by the Louisiana Athletic Trainers Association. He said one of the biggest components to keeping student athletes healthy is communication.
“I think we all communicate with our coaches and educate them, and we educate our parents during the parent meeting,” May said. “We’re going to do what we can do here to hydrate these kids, but you’ve got to help us at home.
“My coaches, they’re going to follow this thing, and they’re going to listen, just constantly being in their ear and letting them know what the temperature is and what it’s going to look like in the future, and I think that goes a long way.”
Shaw is the President-Elect of the Louisiana Athletic Trainers Association and has spent time as a head athletic trainer on the college level. He said when he started at Ouachita about seven years ago, Louisiana was ranked in the bottom five in the nation in high school sports safety policy implementation.
Louisiana is now in the Top 10 due to new legislation and laws being passed like Louisiana Act 259. Other laws address concussion protocol, CPR certification and the latest – an AED (automated external defibrillator) on each school campus and at least one trained person on hand to use it if necessary.
Another law requires at least one coach on each coaching staff per sport to be CPR certified. However, Superintendent Todd Guice is stretching that even further and requiring all high school coaches on staff to be certified. The five high school trainers in the Ouachita Parish School System just completed a training this past May for high schools, and are planning on meeting with the middle schools in the near future.
“Parish-wide, we are doing a good job making sure we have everything in place to provide the best environment we can for them (student-athletes),” Shaw said. “Unfortunately, even with the best preventative measures, things still happen, but I think as a district, we are in a pretty good position to handle those things if they arrive.”
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