There is a silent and tragic problem plaguing the sports world that has nothing to do with performance-enhancing drugs or athletes engaging in nefarious affairs. This is far more severe, yet apparently not severe enough to garner much national attention, let alone congressional hearings.
Young football players are dying from practicing too intensely, often in extreme heat. Yes, we’re talking about practice.
On March 18, Central Florida wide receiver Ereck Plancher collapsed in a spring drill and died roughly an hour later. Plancher is the latest young footballer to pass away from taxing physical conditioning. Autopsies were inconclusive as to the official cause of death.
When a college basketball player like O.J. Mayo is marred in a scandal that raises questions about systematic problems in the NCAA, the sports airwaves are set afire. When a college football player dies, in practice no less, he is reduced to a newswire story ““ overlooked and forgotten.
According to Fred Mueller, a professor of exercise and sports science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, heat-related deaths among middle school and high school players are climbing. Mueller tracks the phenomenon annually, and found five such deaths in 2006 involving 11-to-17-year-olds. Seven more deaths in the age group were from “heart-related” problems. Mueller’s studies do not include the high-temperature training deaths seen in college football recently: Eraste Austin (Florida), Devaughn Darling (Florida State) and Rashidi Wheeler (Northwestern), all in 2001. A South Florida running back died lifting weights last year.
What is so distressing about Ereck Plancher’s story is that it happened indoors, in an air-conditioned building. It wasn’t even 80 degrees outside the facility that day. Furthermore, many of the players suffering heat-stroke have been larger, sometimes technically obese, athletes. Plancher was a well-conditioned 184 pounds. His death was brought about not by heat, or excess body mass, but by a ruthless and tolling workout that was unfit for the human body.
According to the news report, Plancher showed “signs of distress” before collapsing. Coaches yelled at him to finish the particularly intense drill ““ a common practice in the world of sports ““ but something wasn’t right. One player said Plancher’s “eyes got real dark” and that he was “making moaning noises.”
His coaches saw this as a sign of weakness, not as a legitimate health concern.
Central Florida coach George O’Leary ““ infamous for holding the title of Notre Dame head coach for days before it was discovered he lied on his resume ““ yelled at Plancher for his poor performance in the drill.
“That’s a bunch of (expletive) out of you, son,” O’Leary reportedly said, according to four players (other sources state that O’Leary denies these allegations). Plancher was pronounced dead less than two hours later.
Mueller may classify deaths by heat-stroke or heart-failure, but they all emanate from a common theme: Young football players are being worked to death. We are taught to train through pain and distress (“no pain, no gain”). Vomiting is a rite of passage; resting, a sign of weakness.
This is the price of capitalism trickling down into amateur athletics, creating a “business” of college sports. Kids are pushed beyond a reasonable physical limit in the name of competitive advantage. Is it really necessary to train beyond exhaustion on a sweltering summer day, all in the name of victory?
I scoured Google to see if other, less-publicized sports had similar problems: a few soccer players, a few runners, even a crew member, but mostly football players. Perhaps the economic pressures of football lead coaches to push their players past the breaking point, where their bodies heat up like a raging furnace and their eyes grow dark.
There was one particular weekend this spring when UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel gave the players an easy practice due to extreme temperatures. I remember walking around that weekend and sensing the onset of heatstroke after ascending a small flight of stairs, which pales in comparison to carrying 250 pounds around under a helmet while performing grueling physical tasks.
If that sounds dangerous, it’s because it is. It should not take another high-profile NFL death, like the late Korey Stringer’s, to highlight this issue for NCAA and youth teams.
Some might consider UCLA’s spring practice somewhat of a disaster, after injuries sidelined the team’s top two quarterbacks. But by Central and Southern Florida’s standards, it was a roaring success ““ everyone survived.
E-mail Taylor at btaylor@media.ucla.edu.