Sprints in this heat?

It’s very hot. The temperature is soaring into the 90s. These are the kind of days that I think you can fry on egg on the sidewalk. Tonight, my 10-year-old had football practice from 6-7:30; I made sure he had two very cold water bottles to take to practice.

After dropping him off at the park and saying Hello to the coach, I moved on to my oldest son’s soccer game, already underway. I wasn’t there five minutes before my phone rang; a friend, a Dad from the football team said “Your son is OK… he’s in my car… he’s just pretty sick.”

My husband was already on his way to the football practice; so I called to give him the heads up. We learned that practice started by having the kids run sprints. In this heat. The coach said this to the parents after practice:

“Some of the kids got pretty of sick tonight. You’re just going to have to tell your kids they have to work through it.”

Third and fourth graders need to work through it? For what?

There was a time, OK, maybe there was never a time, when I listened to the coaches, we didn’t miss practice, and we took all of this soooo seriously.  Now, I could really care less what the coaches think.  Especially after comments like that one that was made tonight.

My son wants to play football; as long as he wants to play, and he’s having fun, we’ll get him to the practices and the games.  But, we will not kill ourselves to do it — just for the sake of the game.

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10 comments to “Sprints in this heat?”
  1. Once upon a time, my son played football and got sick and the coach made the exact same comment to me. It was then that I realized that this was not for my family. I allowed my son to make the choice, and he eventually chose not to play football. I would love to say that you should report this coach, but I know all too well that this is the overall mentality of the sport, and I doubt very much that any change will come from your complaint. Sending hugs to you and your son because I know how your heart is aching and I know how your son is feeling.

  2. Please make a big stink about this before some kid dies of heatstroke! The league should have rules about this stuff.

  3. What happened to health and safety in kids’ sport?
    I was the coach who forfeit a netball game when the kids were about 8 because it was sheeting down with rain and some of them were turning blue. the other coach got very huffy and said ‘well,it is a winter sport you know’. I was unmoved. We all went home.

  4. Damn. It doesn’t take but an encounter with a bad coach to turn a kid off to a sport. For my eldest boy, it was a demonic baseball coach. The kid lost all interest in playing the game again — at the ripe old age of 9.

  5. Pingback: The day Texas soil blew into my eyes | Susiej

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