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A big loss, so preventable
© St. Petersburg Times, Think first of the son he left behind. For God's sake, who is going to explain this to Kodie? He is 3, an age where a child's eyes are wider than his understanding. Who is going to find the words to tell him his father is dead? Who is going tell him why? For the pursuit of another yard? For the glory of an extra first down? The madness continues. The players keep getting larger, and the teams keep pushing harder, and every now and then, everyone stops to bury the latest victim. Then they proceed. This time, it was Korey Stringer, dead at 27. Soon, friends and family will tell their stories of Stringer, the Minnesota offensive tackle who died Wednesday from heat stroke. They will speak of his footwork and his strength and the way he used his hands. They will talk of how the big man held up during the big plays in the big games. They will talk of his humor, his hard work, how he was one of the good guys in the locker room, and they will try to find some comfort in the size of his memory. For Kodie, a kid without a father, will any of it make any sense? It is time we all slowed down, and time we all cooled off. Athletics are important, but they were never meant to be a matter of life or death. Shorten the practices, if you need to. Take the equipment off on a hot day. Call timeout and have something to drink and let's get some answers. The Vikings certainly have some questions coming. According to reports, Stringer had struggled with the heat on Monday, leaving the field on a golf cart. He then vomited three times on Tuesday morning. Yet, a trainer did not come to him until after he had signaled for one at the conclusion of the drills. What? Why was Stringer out there again so soon? Why does a player, one day after problems, have to signal for a trainer? Why wasn't one at his elbow all along? Why wasn't he taken off the field at the first suggestion of a problem? "If he was allowed to practice again, you'd think it would be with kid gloves," said Dr. Doug Casa, a trainer at the University of Connecticut who wrote the position paper on heat exposure for the National Athletic Trainers Association. "The day before seemed to be a perfect hint that there was a problem." Three times now, in a span of six months, a football player has died during workouts. Unlike FSU's Devaughn Darling and Florida's Eraste Autin, however, this time, it was not a young athlete working out without coaching supervision. This time, it was a Pro Bowl offensive tackle, with teammates and coaches and trainers around him. This time, it was Stringer. But it could have been anyone. It could have been Warren Sapp or Kenyatta Walker, Marcus Jones or Mike Alstott, Jerry Wunsch or Anthony McFarland. That's the message here. If an athlete is not careful, if a team does not stress the danger, the heat can be a killer. It is simply a matter of who is next, and when. "The next two to three weeks worry me," Casa said. "With all the heat waves we're having, and with high schools going to camp, I'm fearful we're going to have worse situations." Why is this happening now? Don't we know better? Hasn't time taught us the importance of hydration? This isn't 20 years ago, when coaches refused to allow their athletes to drink water, when they would question their character for daring to thirst. This isn't the days of Bear Bryant and Vince Lombardi, coaches who drove their players to the point of collapse. But can you remember six months with three deaths during workouts in those days? No, you can't. One difference is in the sheer bulk of the athletes. Running backs today are the size of tackles two decades ago, and tackles are the size of blocking sleds. Yes, sometimes that's done with illegal steroids, but weight training, protein shakes and diet have pumped up and puffed up today's athletes. The heat has a way of using that against an athlete. Autin, for instance, was a 250-pound freshman fullback. Though Stringer had shed 50 pounds over the last few seasons, he was still a 335-pound man. "Without question, that makes a difference," Casa said. "I don't know of any correlation with steroids or protein shakes, but if you have more muscle mass, you're going to create more heat without increasing the way of cooling yourself. That in itself is an increased risk." You wonder what Stringer thought a week ago when Autin was buried. Did he think he was immune? Or did he fall victim to the run-through-the-wall, play-through-the-pain attitude that is instilled in an athlete from the time he puts on a shirt with a number on it? In professional athletics, it is a badge of honor to work through the nausea, to stand till the sweat runs dry. That attitude has to change. Players have to realize the honor of waving for the trainer when a teammate is showing symptoms of overheating. They have to remember to hydrate the night before. They have to realize that steroids for building weight or diuretics for losing it affect the body's cooling system. They have to realize nothing is wrong with taking a play off, that water is not surrender. They have to realize they are not talking about defeat. They are talking about death. "There is always a preventable element to heat stroke," Casa said. "There is always something somebody could have done, a coach, a trainer, a teammate." Today, someone has to explain to a 3-year-old boy named Kodie Stringer why no one prevented the death of his father. After that, perhaps they can explain it to the rest of us.
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