| Korey Stringer’s training-camp death had to be a shock
to anyone who has ever been involved with the NFL. Yes, football is a strenuous game. Yes,
it’s tough to endure full-contact practices twice a day in 90-degree heat. Yes,
players get hurt — sometimes suffering injuries so severe that they can no longer
play. Yes, players get exhausted — sometimes so fatigued that they have to be put on
IVs and have their muscles packed with ice.
But dying?
I went to seven training camps with the Broncos, and I can assure you that the
possibility of dying was not on the menu of my concerns. I went to camp each year worried
about my level of conditioning, how well I’d learn the offense, whether I’d get
injured, whether I’d make the team. But I never worried about dying.
Stringer was a 335-pound offensive lineman for the Vikings. He suffered heatstroke
after his body temperature climbed to 108 degrees, and it’s tough to imagine how that
possibly could have happened. In the heightened awareness of the NFL, it just doesn’t
seem possible that a guy could get into that kind of trouble right in front of everyone.
Since football is such a brutal sport, teams dedicate a lot of resources to M.A.S.H.
units that can deal with all the injuries, illnesses and disabilities that occur on the
field.
There are between 80 and 90 players in each team’s camp, and that’s too much
for the normal training-room staff of three or four men to handle. That’s 80 to 90
sets of ankles to tape twice a day. That’s 80 to 90 body weights to track every day.
That’s 80 to 90 bodies full of potential injuries to treat every day.
So teams hire 10 or 15 "assistant" trainers. Mostly college students who are
majoring in sports medicine or college trainers who want an interesting summer job. They
come to camp to pick up the slack. They tape ankles. They pack hundreds of ice bags every
day. They perform rehab — e.g., player A needs to have his hamstring rubbed for 10
minutes with an ice cup, followed by 10 minutes of ultrasound, followed by 10 minutes of
stretching, followed by 10 minutes of ice.
The interns spend all of practice walking back and forth to the cart, grabbing cups of
water and carrying them to the players who are standing behind the play.
That’s why Stringer’s death is so surprising. A big part of the focus during
training camp is on fluid loss, fluid retention and fluid gain. Water is the great
lubricant. Your body needs it for all the chemical reactions and exchanges that occur
inside of you. A body running low on water is like an engine running low on oil. You get
more friction, which produces more heat, which causes important parts of the engine to
melt down.
Apparently, that’s what happened to Stringer. You have to stay ahead of your water
needs. You have to be drinking water before you get thirsty. You have to keep drinking
water even when your stomach is full and you’re sick of water. You have to keep
drinking because once you get behind on your water, it’s hard to catch up.
Once the engine in your car gets low on oil, damage may occur that isn’t repaired
simply by adding more oil. Once you fall behind on water, damage may occur that isn’t
fixed by adding more water. It sounds as if Stringer fell behind, and by the time he
realized he was in trouble, it was far too late for anyone to do anything.
NFL teams are very aware of this danger, so every time a player comes out of the
action, there’s a trainer next to him offering him water. The player might not be
thinking about water, but the trainer is going to put the cup right in his vision, and if
he doesn’t take the cup, the trainer will be back in a minute or two to offer it
again. Water is always available.
The Broncos’ training-camp cafeteria included a huge juice cooler that was stocked
fresh every day. There was a stack of brown paper bags next to the cooler. Every day at
every meal, players were encouraged to grab a bag, fill it full of their favorite flavors,
take them back to their dorm rooms and drink continuously while watching TV, studying
playbooks, playing video games, talking on the phone, etc.
At the front of the buffet was a big bowl full of salt tablets. Players were encouraged
to take a couple of pills at every meal because it would help their bodies retain more
water. In the locker room, every team has a huge scale set up near a big chart. On the
left-hand side of the chart is a vertical list of every player’s name. At the top of
the chart are column heads for all the dates of training camp. Before every practice, each
player is required to "weigh in." He steps on the scale, then finds his name on
the chart and writes down his weight. After each practice, every player must "weigh
out." The training staff checks the numbers after every practice to see if there is
anyone who has lost too great a percentage of his body weight.
If you forget to weigh in or out of practice, you can get fined several hundred dollars
for each incident. If the training staff identifies somone who is losing too much weight,
an assistant trainer will be assigned to follow the player in practice with water and
Gatorade and force him to drink every minute he’s not in the action. Sometimes, the
staff will take a guy who has lost too much weight and put him on an IV to pump fluid into
his body.
Yes, it’s dangerous out in the heat of training camp, but clearly Stringer’s
death is the exception, not the rule.
Reggie Rivers played for the Denver Broncos from 1991 to ’96. His Web site is
located at http://www.reggierivers.com |
