Using Heads in the Heat of Competition
December 20, 2013
By Rob Kaminski
MHSAA benchmarks editor
With so much recent attention to the risks and recognition of concussions in collision sports, athletic leaders have put their heads together to address far more common – but often overlooked – threats to the health of our student-athletes: heat and sudden cardiac arrest.
The No. 1 killer of young athletes is sudden cardiac arrest, while heat stroke victims can surpass that during the year’s hottest months. While the moment of impact leading to a concussion is totally unpredictable, athletic trainers, coaches and administrators have the ability to diminish the occurrences of cardiac arrest and heatstroke. Typically, there is a pre-existing condition, or family history suggesting probabilities for sudden cardiac arrest, which can be treated when detected. And, the perils associated with hot weather – heat stroke, prostration – are almost always completely preventable.
The MHSAA has addressed both issues recently. With assistance from numerous medical governing bodies, the annual pre-participation physical form was revamped and expanded prior to the 2011-12 school year to include comprehensive information regarding participants’ medical history.
In May, the Representative Council adopted a Model Policy for Managing Heat & Humidity (see below), a plan many schools have since adopted at the local level. The plan directs schools to monitor the heat index at an activity site once the air temperature reaches 80 degrees and provides recommendations when the heat index reaches certain levels, including ceasing activities when it rises above 104 degrees.
The topic of heat-related illnesses receives a lot of attention at the start of fall when deaths at the professional, collegiate and interscholastic levels of sport occur, especially since they are preventable in most cases with the proper precautions. In football, data from the National Federation of State High School Associations shows 41 high school players died from heat stroke between 1995 and 2012.
“We know now more than we ever have about when the risk is high and who is most at risk, and we’re now able to communicate that information better than ever before to administrators, coaches, athletes and parents," said Jack Roberts, executive director of the MHSAA. “Heat stroke is almost always preventable, and we encourage everyone to avail themselves of the information on our website.
“Schools need to be vigilant about providing water during practices, making sure that students are partaking of water and educating their teams about the need for good hydration practices.”
All of which is not to say concussions aren’t a serious matter; they are. In fact, leaders in sport safety can take advantage of the concussion spotlight to illuminate these additional health threats.
A recent New York Times story (May 2013) by Bill Pennington featured a February 2013 gathering in Washington organized by the National Athletic Trainers Association. In the article, Dr. Douglas J. Casa, professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut and Chief Operating Officer of the Korey Stringer Institute (founded in the late NFL offensive lineman’s name to promote prevention of sudden death in sport), suggests just that.
“All the talk about head injuries can be a gateway for telling people about the other things they need to know about, like cardiac events and heat illness,” said Casa in the article. “It doesn’t really matter how we get through to people as long as we continue to make sports safer.”
Education and prevention methods need to find a permanent place in school programs if those programs are to thrive and avoid becoming targets at which special interest groups can aim budgetary arrows.
Dr. Jonathan Drezner, the president of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, said in the New York Times piece that sudden cardiac arrest is “so incredibly tragic and stunning that people aren’t comfortable putting it into the everyday conversation. I do wish, to some extent, it was something people talked more about because we are getting to a place where we could prevent many of these deaths.”
When it comes to heat-related deaths or illnesses, the prevention efforts can be even more successful by educating the masses. And, these efforts can be done at minimal cost to schools.
“That’s the thing about curtailing exertional heat illness: it’s 100 percent preventable, and unlike other health threats to athletes, the solutions can be very low-tech and inexpensive,” said Dr. Michael F. Bergeron, the director of the National Institute for Athletic Health & Performance at the University of South Dakota’s Sanford Medical Center, in the New York Times story.
To assist with cost and data maintenance, the MHSAA has teamed with Sports Health to provide schools with psychrometers (heat measurement instruments) at a discounted rate, and has built online tools to track heat and humidity conditions.
Managing heat and humidity policy
- Thirty minutes prior to the start of an activity, and again 60 minutes after the start of that activity, take temperature and humidity readings at the site of the activity. Using a digital sling psychrometer is recommended. Record the readings in writing and maintain the information in files of school administration. Each school is to designate whose duties these are: generally the athletic director, head coach or certified athletic trainer.
- Factor the temperature and humidity into a Heat Index Calculator and Chart to determine the Heat Index. If a digital sling psychrometer is being used, the calculation is automatic.
If the Heat Index is below 95 degrees:
All Sports
- Provide ample amounts of water. This means that water should always be available and athletes should be able to take in as much water as they desire.
- Optional water breaks every 30 minutes for 10 minutes in duration.
- Ice-down towels for cooling.
- Watch/monitor athletes carefully for necessary action.
If the Heat Index is 95 degrees to 99 degrees:
All Sports
- Provide ample amounts of water. This means that water should always be available and athletes should be able to take in as much water as they desire.
- Optional water breaks every 30 minutes for 10 minutes in duration.
- Ice-down towels for cooling.
- Watch/monitor athletes carefully for necessary action.
Contact sports and activities with additional equipment:
- Helmets and other possible equipment removed while not involved in contact.
- Reduce time of outside activity. Consider postponing practice to later in the day.
- Recheck temperature and humidity every 30 minutes to monitor for increased Heat Index.
If the Heat Index is above 99 degrees to 104 degrees:
All Sports
- Provide ample amounts of water. This means that water should always be available and athletes should be able to take in as much water as they desire.
- Mandatory water breaks every 30 minutes for 10 minutes in duration.
- Ice-down towels for cooling.
- Watch/monitor athletes carefully for necessary action.
- Alter uniform by removing items if possible.
- Allow for changes to dry T-shirts and shorts.
- Reduce time of outside activity as well as indoor activity if air conditioning is unavailable.
- Postpone practice to later in the day.
Contact sports and activities with additional equipment
- Helmets and other possible equipment removed if not involved in contact or necessary for safety.
- If necessary for safety, suspend activity.
Recheck temperature and humidity every 30 minutes to monitor for increased Heat Index.
If the Heat Index is above 104 degrees:
All sports
- Stop all outside activity in practice and/or play, and stop all inside activity if air conditioning is unavailable.
Note: When the temperature is below 80 degrees there is no combination of heat and humidity that will result in need to curtail activity.
PHOTO: The Shepherd volleyball team includes hydration during a timeout in a match this fall.
Building Beginning as Okemos Follows 1st-Year Coach Scott-Emuakpor
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 9, 2022
OKEMOS – The football lay on the turf, landing there before the play had really begun, and the most booming voice from the tallest man on the field yelled a reassuring, “It’s OK. Let’s go,” followed the next play by “Go again,” and then “Figure it out.”
An hour earlier, first-year Okemos varsity football coach Efe Scott-Emuakpor had been on the phone asking a parent to bring the helmet and practice jersey one of his players had left at home. Nearby, another small group also stood helmetless as they hadn’t yet gotten the pre-participation physical required to join their friends on the field.
Those are typical first-day glitches no matter the school, and fall practices for all sports began Monday at 750 high schools across the state.
But those relatively minor symptoms are what Scott-Emuakpor is focused on treating in the immediate term as he takes on one of the most serious rebuilding efforts in Michigan high school football.
“This is progress,” Scott-Emuakpor said halfway through his team’s first practice, looking out at 39 players on Okemos’ game field – 33 more than showed up for his first offseason workout.
“We’d like to have everything right now. But it’s growing. It’s slowly growing.”
And after Monday, Okemos is one step closer to what would be an incredible turnaround story.
The Wolves have not won since Week 2 of the 2019 season, a stretch of 23 games. After scoring on an 84-yard run during the first quarter of last fall’s opener against Mason, Okemos didn’t score again the rest of the season.
Standing 6-foot-3, and still only a few years from his last college game as a receiver at Ball State University, Scott-Emuakpor looks capable of stepping back into a huddle at a moment’s notice. A little more than a decade ago, in 2011, he was beginning a senior season at East Lansing that would see him cap his varsity career in the MHSAA record book with 134 catches, gaining 1,624 yards, over three seasons. He also was an all-leaguer in basketball and Finals placer in high jump before joining the Cardinals.
After graduating from Ball State with a computer science bachelor’s degree, and on the way to earning his master’s in business from Saginaw Valley State University, Scott-Emuakpor came home and has worked nearly six years as a business systems analyst with Red Cedar Solutions Group on efforts including the MI School Data website.
But that’s just his fulltime job. Scott-Emuakpor also co-founded a clothing line, Live For Today, and over the last five seasons served as a volunteer assistant coach with his hometown Trojans – who have made the MHSAA Playoffs six seasons running.
He'd never applied for a head coaching job. He’d never really considered coaching at that level. In fact, he was pretty happy with how assisting at East Lansing for longtime coach Bill Feraco fit into his schedule and other pursuits.
But Scott-Emuakpor also is a studier. And as a past rival and co-member of the Capital Area Activities Conference Blue, he and East Lansing saw Okemos plenty.
The Wolves had made the playoffs as recently as 2018, and won their first playoff game that season since 2011. Scott-Emuakpor had played against Okemos’ Taylor Moton, now considered one of the NFL’s top offensive tackles. And the school has had loads of success in other sports, annually ranking among the Lansing area’s best in just about all of them and coming off a statewide Division 1 championship in boys soccer from last fall.
“I paid attention to how things have been around here. And I know what they could be capable of,” Scott-Emuakpor said. “This program was once a good program that was very well-respected; I respected them playing against them in high school. They had great athletes. I think my senior year we beat them by one point (20-19 in 2011). So we had good battles.
“I just saw where they’re at. … We have some good kids around here, and I know there’s more in the school not playing. Maybe when they’re sophomores, juniors, they’ll come out. I think I’m capable of getting that interest up, getting them out on the field and just building something.”
Raj Singh is a senior this fall, one of only five or so Scott-Emuakpor is expecting to come out this week. He’s also a near all-A student, will play some quarterback and safety along with his receiver spot, and was the guy bringing carloads of classmates to workouts over the summer as he joined his coach in recruiting prospective players.
Singh is following his older brother Joe Singh, an admittedly “smaller than everyone” offensive lineman who earned all-league honors as a senior in 2017. When Joe Singh told his younger brother that playing under the lights on a Friday night is a feeling unlike any other, the idea stuck – which is why it made sense when Raj Singh fractured his wrist in Week 2 last season but was back by Week 7 despite a cast covering one hand.
Watching Singh catch passes one-handed last season during East Lansing’s 49-0 win over Okemos stuck with Scott-Emuakpor. Joe Singh had told his little bother that all that matters is having more heart than his opponent and a fighting spirit – in other words, being the type of player Scott-Emuakpor will rely on to get Okemos up and succeeding again.
“I’ve been playing football since I was 6 years old. It’s just been a dream of mine to be at this moment,” Raj Singh said.
“Coach Efe is bringing in a lot of new aspects, and that’s been very helpful to make it different than last year – make us feel a little more at home this year. Compared to last year, he’s brought a lot of structure. We’ve been really coming together as a family … and it just shows Coach Efe wants to build a community around here.”
The process is about more than building stronger, faster bodies and learning football skills and technique. The Wolves aren’t talking a lot about last year, but there’s something there to overcome – and Scott-Emuakpor started working on that soon after he was hired at the end of March.
“In the springtime, we were fortunate enough to get in the weight room and I was able to see kids put up good weight and do some things. I’d tell them, ‘You’re actually strong. You’re actually a fast kid,’” Scott-Emuakpor said. “But when you’re not successful for so long, and the way they were losing last year, it was easy for them to not feel confident, not feel they were able to ultimately get the job done. And so I was just there working on minds.”
Last season was going to be uphill for Okemos no matter what. A mid-summer coaching change brought on by a major fulltime job promotion for the former coach led to an interim staff, players leaving the program, and an applaudable effort to just keep teams on the field.
Scott-Emuakpor has surrounded himself with a staff that includes a pair of his past coaches growing up in East Lansing, past players from when he was coaching there and others with winning experience playing at DeWitt and Williamston.
In addition to what he learned playing and coaching under Feraco, Scott-Emuakpor brings a ton of insight from his experiences at Ball State; he had only one catch during his college career while battling injuries, but he spent that time on the sideline observing his coaches and taking mental notes. Just Sunday, he was pulling from the 2012-13 Ball State football handbook a few details to incorporate into his work in progress with the Wolves.
Okemos will have varsity and freshman teams this fall, and the majority of players at Monday’s combined practice were juniors and sophomores – so recruiting remains ongoing. But Singh said the number of classmates who did come out Monday exceeded his expectations – and that just added to the excitement of starting again.
“If you walk through the school, you’ll see some guys, you’ll (say), ‘OK, what does that guy do?’ You find out he plays (only) lacrosse, or only wrestles, where in other areas, other schools, they might do everything because that’s what they do, what they’ve grown up doing” Scott-Emuakpor said. “I’ve been trying to rebuild that connection, that love for football. A lot of them are very intrigued; I feel like some of them are kinda peeking and saying, ‘What’s going on? This new coach seems to be young and interesting.’ And I’ve just been trying to stay focused on the process and not get too far ahead of myself.”
Geoff Kimmerly joined the MHSAA as its Media & Content Coordinator in Sept. 2011 after 12 years as Prep Sports Editor of the Lansing State Journal. He has served as Editor of Second Half since its creation in January 2012, and MHSAA Communications Director since January 2021. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Barry, Eaton, Ingham, Livingston, Ionia, Clinton, Shiawassee, Gratiot, Isabella, Clare and Montcalm counties.
PHOTOS (Top) First-year Okemos varsity football coach Efe Scott-Emuakpor, middle, huddles up his players during Monday's first day of practice. (2) Scott-Emuakpor confers with senior Raj Singh on blocking from his receiver position. (3) The Wolves work on offense during the first part of their Monday session. (4) Scott-Emuakpor speaks with his team at the start of the workout. (Photos by Geoff Kimmerly.)