The Heat Season Calendar: What Your Program Should Do, and When

Hot weather comes at different times in different places, so line these stretches up with your own season. Your state association, school district or league may set dates and rules of its own. Follow those first.

1. The off-season: plan and budget

• Read last season's heat records and notes. What went well, what was missing, and was there any close call?
• Check your written emergency action plan for every venue you use. If you don't have one, the free National Stay Cool Day EAP builder walks you through it.
• Put the cooling setup in the budget: a tub at each venue, ice, a way to measure the heat, and water for every athlete.
• Look for any new rules from your state association or league.

2. Spring: get the gear and the people in place

• Order anything that's missing so it arrives before practice starts.
• Line up ice. Know where it comes from on a weekday afternoon and on a Saturday morning.
• Name the people for each venue: who makes the heat call, who calls 911, who runs the cooling, and who covers when they're out.
• Update your heat policy and hand it to every coach.

3. The weeks before the first practice: walk it and rehearse it

• Walk every venue with the preseason venue walkthrough. Find the shade, the water, the tub spot and the way an ambulance gets in.
• Set up the cooling station once for real, using the cooling station checklist.
• Run a full cooling drill with the coaches and volunteers who will be there. The heat stroke drill guide shows how.
• Tell families how heat calls are made and how they'll hear about changes. The parents page covers what they should expect.

4. The first two weeks: ease in

The first days of practice in summer heat are when athletes are most at risk. Build up slowly: practice length, gear and the number of sessions a day. National Stay Cool Day's acclimatization schedule is a good place to start. Athletes who join late or come back after time off start the build-up from the beginning.

5. All season: the daily routine

• Check the heat before every practice and write it down.
• Have the tub filled and the ice there before practice starts, not after someone goes down.
• Give water and rest breaks with no limits, and never punish an athlete for asking.
• Any coach can pull an athlete who looks wrong. An athlete who seems confused, collapses or stops making sense is an emergency.

If it happens, everyone follows the same order:

1. Call 911 and cool at the same time. One person calls while others start cooling.
2. Start cooling within 10 minutes. Cold water with ice agitation, with the goal of about 102°F within 30 minutes. At 104°F the body loses its ability to regulate its own temperature.
3. Cool first, transport second.
4. Gear: remove anything you can quickly but don't delay cooling because of gear removal.

Exertional heat stroke is 100% survivable when the athlete is cooled fast, on site. That's why the earlier stretches matter: the tub, the ice and the trained people have to already be there.

After the season: write it down

• Collect the heat logs, drill records and any notes from hot days.
• Talk with coaches about what got in the way.
• Make a short list of fixes for next year, and start the calendar again.

Where to go next

Athletic directors can use the athletic directors page for the full season checklist. Coaches can use the coaches page for the daily heat routine. For questions about the Council, contact us.