Could climate change turn off the Friday night lights?
Prep football starts this week, as daily temperatures hit 100 degrees with heat indices climbing to 115. As I write this, school officials are nervously monitoring the heat and considering postponement of opening night.
Coaches of all outdoor sports are required to follow the Missouri State High School Activities Association’s Heat Acclimatization Plan for preparing athletes to practice and compete in the heat. If this year’s record-breaking heat waves all over the world are indeed the result of climate change, as many experts believe, you can blame that if the fall sports schedules of our local schools are literally burned up.
A recent Washington Post story reported that “the heat index reached 152 degrees in the Middle East – nearly at the limit of human survival.” The story described how the human body is unable to cool down beyond that temperature because of the combination of heat and humidity.
Now, instead of the heat index, the measurement of choice is the “wet bulb temperature,” taken by a specialized thermometer that can account for sunlight, humidity and evaporation. When school officials monitor the weather for outdoor events, they now refer to the WBT.
On Sunday afternoon, St. Pius X activities director Tilden Watson walked his campus with a wet bulb to measure different competition areas. Depending on if he was standing in direct sunlight, or clouds came by, or there was some wind, the wet bulb temp ranged between 84-88 degrees.
With the heatwave expected all week, Watson will keep using the device and follow the MSHSAA guidelines accordingly. Any reading under 82 degrees means no restrictions on practices or games. From 82 to 86.9, discretion is called for, such as carefully watching any at-risk athletes. When the wet bulb reaches or exceeds 87, practice is limited to two hours, and football players can wear helmets and shoulder pads only.
For any WBT of 90 or above, all equipment is forbidden, practice is reduced to an hour with no conditioning work and games can be cancelled. All outdoor activity ceases at 92 WBT.
St. Pius X and Herculaneum are the last two high schools in the county that play football on grass fields. Both teams are on the road Friday, playing on artificial turf.
“My field will cool down faster than artificial turf,” Watson said, adding that moving games to Saturday morning won’t work because there are not enough officials to go around.
About the same time Watson was taking readings Sunday, De Soto activities director and head football coach Russ Schmidt received his seventh heat alert of the day. At 1:35 p.m. in De Soto, the WBT was 93.18. The Dragons are scheduled to host Bishop DuBourg in their season opener. Kickoff is slated for 7 p.m. One option that’s been used many times is to delay kickoff to 8, or even 9 p.m. After discussing the situation with his assistants and officials Sunday, Schmidt said he didn’t think changing the time will be necessary.
Competition in cross country, boys soccer, softball and girls golf is equally affected and it’s possible the schools will be making decisions about postponing or cancelling events before the Leader arrives in your mailbox. I asked activities directors at the schools that are hosting Friday football games what their status was, and as of our deadline Monday, everything was still going on as scheduled.
Athletes and coaches were delighted by how mild the weather had been the first two weeks of practice, only to get slammed with a late-summer heatwave. If and when football is played, expect frequent water breaks, an important move to protect the athletes and officials (refs get hot, too). Stopping the action once a quarter for a water break might be the best idea to protect the health of players since concussion protocol.
“It’s not that I haven’t been faced with that situation before,” Schmidt said. “Hydration for (Friday’s game) started (last) week. I can’t applaud MSHSAA’s rules enough to break for water and the officials have handled it well. We’re all in this for the best interest of our kids’ safety.
“As far as preparation, as a coach you’ve practiced your depth and your No. 2s got their reps, so when you rotate personnel in (the game), you don’t get hurt. We rotated a lot of kids through the jamboree.”
Now that the jamborees are over, let the games begin – hot or not. Last week, we profiled the small-school football teams. This week it’s the big boys’ turn.
Of note, Seckman is hosting Valle Catholic, and anybody who was at last year’s meeting in Ste. Genevieve won’t forget how the Jaguars led the Warriors in the fourth quarter before giving way to, of all things, the heat, along with Valle’s typical depth of talent. The Warriors outscored Seckman 34-0 in the fourth to win 61-36. Seckman figuratively took its place in the graveyard across the street, where so many other teams’ hopes are buried. Jaguar head coach Nick Baer said this Friday will likely be the last meeting between the two schools that are radically different in size – 1,347 students attended Seckman last year, compared to 116 at Valle.
What I like about Fox football head coach Brent Tinker is that he’s always looking for the deeper meaning in leading his players. Entering his 13th season, Tinker has carried that responsibility longer than any of his counterparts at the 11 other schools in the county. Fox scored one of its two wins last year against Mehlville; the Warriors visit the Panthers Friday night.
Scott Gerling will try to get his first career win as head coach at Northwest when the Lions host Sullivan Friday night. Winless (0-10) last year, Northwest has a tough task against the Eagles, who were Class 3 semifinalists in 2022 and won last season’s meeting at Sullivan 34-7.
Mississippi Area Football Conference Red Division favorites Festus and Hillsboro open with home games. The Tigers host Ste. Genevieve; the Dragons beat Festus 50-35 last season and went on to score 40 or more points eight times, while Festus had the indignity of starting 0-2 after losing to Valle Catholic the next week.
Hillsboro, coming off winning the Class 4 District 1 championship, hosts Sikeston, a likely district opponent. Despite all of the Hillsboro and Festus losses to graduation, I think the conference and district titles will again be decided by those two rivals. District assignments haven’t been released yet, but it would be cause for an investigation if Festus and Hillsboro don’t land in the same one, as they have since the current playoff system debuted in 2012.