Despite the relatively cooler temperatures that greeted high school coaches and players as they began fall practice this week, Stearns football coach Chris Preble had a little bit of a scare during a session Wednesday.

Three football players approached Preble and told him they weren’t feeling well. It didn’t take long for the Stearns staff to react.

“We brought them aside, first thing, and got them out of the sun,” said Preble, who is in his first season as a head coach at the Millinocket school. “We started putting the water right to them. Then they came around.”

Fortunately, Preble and his staff did just about everything right when they sat the players down in the shade and had them drink lots of water.

Unfortunately, just about everything went wrong in the events before the recent heatstroke-related death of NFL lineman Korey Stringer of the Minnesota Vikings. Stringer’s death has focused national attention on heat-related illness.

A week into high school football double sessions in Maine, many teams are so well-watered that the driest thing around is the brown, bristly grass on many of the practice fields. And temperatures in Maine are no longer in the sweltering range (of course for players wearing those pads, it’s hot no matter what and more hot days could remain during preseason).

Stringer’s death still looms large for some high school football players. Coaches say they aren’t changing the way they handle practices – many teams spent the week doing the dreaded two-a-days and even three-a-days. But coaches say they’re more conscious than ever of keeping players full of water and aware of the warning signs of heat-related problems.

Death shocks players, coaches

News of Stringer’s death came as a shock to some (although others were surprised the situation hadn’t happened before), and football people are wondering how a death could have occurred at the professional level.

“It’s kind of shocking that it can happen to the best athletes in the world, because if it happens to them it can happen to you,” said Mattanawcook Academy junior Jon Carney.

“You think about Korey Stringer going out there and he gives 100 percent just like all of us on the football field,” said Cory Tash, who is also an MA senior. “… You come out here and see guys hustling around, see them sucking down air, and you think, maybe this guy’s dehydrated. You never know.”

Stringer, 27, died Aug. 1. He was hospitalized after practicing the day before and died of multiple organ failure in the hospital overnight. His body temperature had risen to more than 108 degrees.

“It makes me wonder how involved [Stringer’s] coaches were,” MA’s Kyle Libbey said. “Our coaches, they give us opportunities to get water and when we get hot we ask for water. It’s not a problem.”

In the weeks since Stringer’s death, heat-related problems have been reported at the Carolina Panthers, University of Miami and Texas A&M camps. Florida fullback Eraste Autin died of heat stroke this summer.

With temperatures in the 90s and 100s, and high humidity, Lawrence of Fairfield coach Brad Bishop wondered why, with all the facilities available to NFL teams, the Vikings were practicing in such extreme conditions.

“It’s asinine to have those guys out there when it’s that hot,” he said. “They’ve got indoor places, lights. It’s crazy. It never should have happened. They should practice early in the morning or late at night. If we can practice at 7 [a.m.] why can’t they?”

Parents, coaches more concerned

Since Stringer’s death, and the deaths of several college and high school players that may or may not have been heat-related, the National Athletic Trainers Association has had a crush of questions from the public.

Valerie Hunt, a NATA staffer, said the association has been getting 10 to 20 calls a week from middle-school parents to college coaches in the weeks following Stringer’s death. In a normal week the NATA might not get a single call about heat-related illness.

But recently, the association has been dispensing advice about how to recognize the symptoms of dehydration and heat-related illnesses, and what to do if an athlete is in trouble.

From 1990 to 2000, 19 high school and college football players died of heat stroke or heat-related illnesses, according to a University of North Carolina study.

The National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at UNC reported that 10 players died from 1998-2000. No players died from 1931-1954.

All high school coaches in Maine are required to take first-aid and CPR classes, and many coaches have a background or a degree in health or physical education.

Hopefully, those qualifications are enough to handle anything that could arise on the football field. Only a handful of schools have a certified trainer on their staffs, such as Bangor High’s John Ryan. It’s a luxury many small schools can’t afford.

“It would be nice to have a trainer,” said Preble. “But we’ve got to do it. We’ve got to play trainer.”

One of the biggest misconceptions is that the cooler summer temperatures enjoyed in Maine mean that heat-related illnesses don’t effect the state’s student-athletes.

In fact, the NATA points out on its Web site, people in cooler climates are often more susceptible because they don’t expect and aren’t prepared for the heat.

Just like the national organization, coaches have had to dealing with worried parents.

Orono High football coach Wally Covell had a novel way of addressing parents’ concerns at a preseason meeting last weekend.

“I told them we had a canary in a coal mine situation here in Orono because I’m an old man and I’ll be the first to go if the heat’s too much,” said the 68-year-old Covell with a chuckle.

Salt tablets and water buckets

The focus on heat stroke and recognizing the symptoms of dehydration has many coaches recalling their practices as players in high school preseason.

Practices in the pre-abundant water era weren’t pretty.

Covell remembers his own high school days as a hopeful member of Lewiston’s varsity team.

“In the old days when I was playing, you didn’t have any water around,” explained Covell, who was part of the Blue Devils’ 1951 state championship team. “If that wasn’t enough, they actually used to give us salt pills, which wasn’t exactly the best thing for you on a hot day.”

Maybe things had progressed by 1975, when Brad Bishop was a senior on the Brunswick High team. The Dragons practiced in heavy shirts and took salt pills after practices, but they actually had water on the field.

“It was hotter than hell and there would be one bucket of water and everybody would reach into it and it was always dirty,” Bishop said. “And we were not in good shape before practice because nobody lifted weights, nobody ran like we make these kids do now. I can remember struggling and I’m sure a lot of kids did.”

Keeping cool

After a practice at Lawrence High of Fairfield one afternoon, players sucked on popsicles and water-based Flavr-Ices. Coaches now know the more water, the better. According to the NATA, studies have shown that football players can lose as much as 24 pounds of fluid in 24 hours during two-a-day workouts.

Lawrence coach Bishop estimates his players get seven or eight water breaks in a two-hour practice. Other coaches have a similar amount of breaks in their sessions and keep a close watch on their heavier players.

“We’ve got two kids that weigh over 240 [pounds] who are in pretty good shape, but they struggle,” Bishop said. “We make sure we bring them water right behind the huddle.”

Scheduling practice sessions at the right times of day is important, coaches say. With double sessions, some coaches practice early in the morning and late in the afternoon to beat the heat. Bishop holds two sessions in the early morning and afternoon and said his players haven’t felt any effects of the heat.

Pratt has opted not to hold double sessions this year, but his primary reason for that is to avoid conflicts with his assistant coaches’ work schedules. The fact that it’s cooler for Dexter’s 5 p.m. practices is a bonus.

Stearns senior Brad Cyr said he prepares for the season by changing his diet in the weeks before practice.

“You don’t want to eat a lot of fat and junk food,” he said. “It’s just going to upset your stomach, especially in the heat. You need a lot of healthy fruit and a lot of water in your diet if you’re going to stay out here for a long period of time.”

Th big key to staying healthy, the student-athletes said, is to know your own body, what feels right and what doesn’t. And the one positive thing to come out of the deaths this summer is that everyone will pay a little more attention to what their bodies are telling them.

The student-athletes know it’s up to them to ask a coach for a break.

“You have to ask,” Mattanawcook junior Tom Lasko said. “If you’re pushing yourself, giving 100 percent the whole time and you finally get to the point where you need water, you have to ask.”