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Two-a-day practices have been grueling, midsummer tests of endurance for football players for as long as most of today's coaches can remember.
Two-a-day practices have been grueling, midsummer tests of endurance for football players for as long as most of today's coaches can remember.
But the NFL's new contract with its players bans a second, full-contact practice on any one day. In college football, two-a-days were limited by the NCAA in 2003. The only place where this rite of passage is still a staple is on thousands of high school fields, where players reported for practice in recent days amid a record-breaking, and sometimes lethal, heat wave.
Since July 22, five young football players have died — in Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania and South Carolina— after participating in practice or conditioning. Though the official cause of their deaths has not been determined, heat is a suspect.
Those numbers are more typical of a full summer. Four students died in 2008 and four in 2009, all under similar circumstances. At least some such deaths might be prevented if vulnerable, young amateurs benefited from a few of the protections now extended to adult, multimillionaire professionals. Then again, high school players don't have a union. And their advocates, who have pursued changes for years, can't get the attention of those in charge.
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