For many high schoolers, summer is a time to sleep in and relax but for athletes, the summer is the time when rosters are made, starting spots are secured and conditioning is developed. For members of the band, summer is when championship routines are learned and movements are memorized. While these student-athletes are working through grueling workouts, their biggest challenger is often not teammates or coaches, it’s the heat.
To combat this issue, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) has set rules and regulations for when teams can practice. Teams that practice outside are not allowed to practice between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. and there are limits to how many hours a team can practice in a day. In addition, the NCHSAA sets dead periods (times when a coach or school staff member cannot organize school-sponsored activities) to try and reduce the physical toll on student-athletes and to keep them safe.
Here at Green Hope, teams from fall, winter and spring seasons held workouts to prepare for their seasons.
For the football team, they started the workouts right at the beginning of summer. Luccas Soares, a 2023 All-Conference selection, spoke with the GH Falcon about their summer schedule. He stated, “We started in June right as it started to get hot, but for the first two weeks we didn’t use pads. This helped us to acclimate to the heat before we went full pads.” Making sure to comply with the NCHSAA’s rules, the team practiced early in the morning. Soares continued, “Early in the summer we practiced from 6-9 [a.m.] but as we got later towards the school year we practiced later in the day from 5-8 p.m. to help us get acclimated to playing at that time.” With games kicking off at 7:00 p.m., Soares emphasized the importance of practicing at that time to prepare their bodies.
Even without practicing in the hottest parts of the day, trainers and coaches still take necessary precautions to ensure the safety of the players. “We would take water breaks every 30 minutes, sometimes more frequently. The trainers did a great job bringing the caddies [of water] around… There is also an ice machine in the training room that we could use for ice baths if needed.”
With all of these safety measures followed, the team had a successful summer in terms of keeping their players safe. Soares stated, “I don’t think anyone got heatstroke, the coaches and trainers did a great job planning and helping us out.”
While athletics has the NCHSAA, there is no governing body that regulates the workload of the band.
The band is allowed to practice at any hour of the day and does not have mandated dead periods by a state-wide organization. Beginning in July, the band works tirelessly throughout the summer in a period called band camp. In an interview with the GH Falcon, Tatum Shin (‘27) detailed a normal summer day for the Green Hope band.
“On an average day, we start at 8:00 a.m. sharp outside on the blacktop courts near the softball and baseball fields to work on our visuals.” Shin described visuals as a time to practice the marching component of their routines. After three-and-a-half hours of visuals, the band goes inside and takes a one-hour break for lunch.
(Mason Dean)
Shin continued, “After lunch, we stayed inside for music rehearsal, practicing the songs we perform. this lasts three and a half hours and ends at 4:00. we usually end the day there, but on the second week of band camp, we actually stayed until 8:30 PM.”
With these long days, it is important for the team to stay cool. Shin spoke on the different techniques marchers used to stay cool. “We had lots of water breaks to help us with the heat, and a few of us brought handheld fans or sports towels to keep themselves cool. The water we had was ice cold as well, so we would pour it on our backs for the same effect.”
In addition to the triple-digit temperatures outside, another significant obstacle was the broken air conditioning in the building. When the band would go inside for lunch and music rehearsal, instead of getting a refreshing cool down, they continued to face the suffocating heat. This left the marchers to be in constant heat for more than 12 hours a day. With no governing body like the NCHSAA, the band practiced all July with no weeks off. The heat took a toll on some of the members of the band with one member getting heatstroke and having to miss two days of rehearsal.
As Green Hope marchers and student-athletes navigated the summer heat, policies have yet to be enacted to protect all activity participants at school.
