Record-breaking triple-digit temperatures in Southern California on Monday forced high school football coaches to modify practices and sent lots of athletes indoors to escape the heat. Meanwhile, college athletes took the day off, shortened workouts or trained early in the morning or at night.
The Los Angeles Unified School District canceled all outdoor activities because of excessive heat, according to the Los Angeles Times. A photo on the newspaper's web site shows a bank's digital thermometer registering at 120 degrees at 3 p.m. yesterday. North Hollywood's Harvard-Westlake, a private school, was planning to hold football practice on its outdoor synthetic-turf field until the temperature hit 115 degrees - 126 on the turf. Schools that went ahead with outdoor practices provided student-athletes with additional water breaks.
In nearby Palm Springs, the thermometer read only 104 degrees, so Palm Springs High football coach Steve Fabian decided to take his team out on the field. "You have to water the kids like they're brand-new ears of corn," Fabian told the Times. "We're very careful at what we do. The word for practicing in high temperatures is 'caution.' We have fans, coolers, misters, tents."
