Athletic trainers talk the job during football training camp

Aug 25, 2023

Joe Olivadoti, Richmond’s head football athletic trainer, says players are at most risk from heat during the first week or so of practice.

Listed on the paper in front of Justin Walker are 118 names.

Chronologically, the entirety of Old Dominion’s football team stares back at him. Quarterbacks, receivers, linemen. All with a smiling headshot next to each — 118 lives that he’s responsible for the moment that they step onto the field or into the practice facility. In this heat.

“At the end of the day, like there’s 118 and so many kids that are trusting us with like their safety,” said Walker, the trainer for Old Dominion. “That’s something that I know that I take pride in.”

Since 1968, at least 50 football players have died due to heat stroke, according to a 2022 report from the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research (NCCSI).

Additionally, summer 2023 has been one of the hottest in recent years. Weather experts warn that the mean earth-surface temperatures in July at a point was 62.5, exceeding a previous high of 61.9 in 2019.

Walker said all of his athletes are required to get an EKG and an echo cardiogram to pre-screen for any issues ahead of training. He said not a lot of athletic programs will screen for both but ODU does. Then, the staff had an idea about pre-existing heart conditions, which can be exacerbated by the heat.

“We are prepared for the worst,” Walker said. “If anything were to happen, we know exactly what to do. And myself and my staff are all equipped to do it and makes it easier to know that we’ve all kind of went through that whole training with everybody.”

From there, Walker had meetings during the summer with his staff to create a plan in case of emergency. He assigns each member of his staff with specific tasks so that there’s no delay in rendering aid.

“We (did) training multiple times this summer,” Walker said.

He works with the ODU coaching staff so that certain gear is worn if it’s a certain temperature outside. If the temperature is high enough, they’ll move practice indoors.

“We’re staying hydrated, so we’re staying cool,” Walker said.

So, how are other local football trainers handling the heat? The Times-Dispatch talked with some around the state. All mentioned the obvious such as cooling rags, hydration, plenty of water stations. Here are their insights.

Kelli Pugh, Virginia (head football trainer): Pugh said U.Va. student-athletes swallow what looks like a multi-vitamin pill but it is a small but high-tech core temperature monitoring device called an ingestible thermistor. Athletes swallow the device at lunchtime. Once digested, Pugh can punch in the personalized number assigned to each athlete and monitor his core body temperature.

“We have held kids whose temperature hit 103.2 or 103.4,” Pugh said. “Clinical heatstroke is at 104 or higher. And so if we see someone above 103, we’ll pull them out.”

This monitoring system is one way of many that trainers are keeping players cool in training camp. With temperatures spiking and humidity rising across the state, trainers said there are ways to keep guys cool periodically and to cool them down quickly.

She also keeps to the basics. “We’ll put (a towel) over their head squeeze a cold water down the back of their shoulder pads,” Pugh said. “We have a big Rubbermaid trough that we keep off the side of the field. And that’s always ready to be filled in case we needed to immerse someone in cold water who is really getting too hot.”

Joe Olivadoti, Richmond (head football trainer): Olivadoti said the first days of a heat wave are the riskiest. “The first seven to 10 days is the highest chance for the heat illnesses,” Olivadoti said.

“It’s really what’s called the wet bulb globe temperature. It’s gonna be a combination of your wet temperature, your dry temperature, wind speed, so on and so forth. And it’s going to give you a number and we have policies here where if it reaches a certain standpoint, that we may alter practice.”

What has helped, he said, is that the NCAA has changed its policy with training camp, making it a slow migration of what equipment the football players put on. It starts with just helmets, then shoulder pads and helmets and through a few days before it eventually gets to full gear. It helps athletes adapt to the heat.

Tyler Webb, James Madison (head football trainer): Webb said it’s about supplementing bodies outside of practice and camp so that athletes are safer on the field.

“It’s important to be in shape and strong and fast and everything but you have to replace what you lose,” Webb said. “You know, how much water should you be drinking? How much food should you be eating? That kind of stuff has been really big here.”

Webb became interested in becoming a trainer after he injured in high school sports and went through rehab and began to ask a lot of questions of his high school trainer. “I’ve always been kind of interested in medicine.”

Mike Goforth, Virginia Tech (associate athletic director for sports medicine with football): Goforth repeated the theme that athletes need to stay hydrated but if an athlete gets overheated, he needs to be put into a cooling tub. But even that’s not a guarantee to keep their temperature down.

“The minute you take them out of that cold tub, they’re going to start heating up again,” Goforth said. “We spent a lot of time perfecting and practicing those techniques.”

Savannah Reger

(804) 649-6772

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@SavannahReger17 on Twitter

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