Working Up A Major Sweat Late-Summer Practice Brings Out Perspiration In Area’S High-School Athletes

Zach Lange packs three shirts for practice.

One for the morning, one for the afternoon, and one to wear home to avoid offending the family.

It’s cool to be clean, especially when you’re known as one of the players who sweats the most on your high school football team.

During two-a-day practices at North Central High School, Lange, a senior fullback and linebacker, is drenched by the time he’s done.

“It’s just like you took a shower,” Lange said during a water break Thursday morning, which was the team’s first workout in full pads. “You can’t smell it until after you’re done and you go to put it back on for the next practice.”

Lange is not alone.

It’s the season of sweat on football fields everywhere as players push through the grind of two-a-days trying to get in shape before the first kickoff.

And they’re not just sweating the thought of being cut from the team or not making the starting lineup.

A late August heat wave combined with tough early-season practices makes for puddles of perspiration under tired teens.

NC’s head student trainer, senior Jodi McDonald, reported one case of heat exhaustion Thursday, the first of the season.

Coaches encourage their athletes to drink plenty of water, and Lange has been following that advice. He guzzles more than two gallons a day.

NC freshman Nick Gordon walked off the field Thursday in a soaked gray T-shirt with a water bottle to his lips.

His short hair was wet and droplets of sweat fell from his face. The 6-foot-1, 279-pound Gordon lost more than a pound in the first week of practice.

His mom won’t touch his sweaty practice gear. She says “you’re washing them,” he said of his shirts.

In polite company, sweating is considered crude. Women are allowed to perspire, but only if they keep it their secret. Men can sweat, but not smell.

“At the end of practice, their shirts are just drenched,” McDonald said. “It’s gross, but they’re working hard.”

During water breaks, one NC player makes a point to share his sweat with trainer Chrisanne Wisniewski, a junior.

“He wipes his head on my leg, then it drips off me,” she said. “I say `How can you possibly sweat that much?”’ Girls are sweating, too.

NC junior soccer player Cassie Chase had an athletic moment of intimacy with her mom Thursday.

Her mother had stopped by to check how her daughter was doing playing with her protective knee brace. During a water break, Chase swiped her sweaty face across the front of her mom’s shoulder.

“I was just being a brat to my mom,” Chase said, smiling. “She said `Thank you for wiping your sweat on me.”’ Coach Tim Cox wore black shorts and a black T-shirt Thursday and was regretting it.

The temperature reached the low 90s.

“It’s insane,” he said of wearing black. “I’m standing around getting sweaty.”

At Lewis and Clark soccer practice last week, Therese Crisp was embarrassed.

“You don’t want to shake my hand,” the Tigers senior said during a water break at Hart Field. “I’m sweaty.”

It was the same at Mead. Most of the Panthers soccer players were exhausted last Tuesday after completing a 2-mile timed run on the track to end their 3-hour practice.

One player sat against the wall of the equipment shed after practice hunched over in exhaustion.

Football coach Bob McCray walked by on his way in after practice and instructed her teammates to step back. He soaked a T-shirt and placed it on the player’s head to cool her down.

McCray is constantly reminding his players to drink plenty of water.

Ferris football coach Clarence Hough said players can burn as many as 6,000 calories during two-a-day practices.

On the Saxons’ soccer field Tuesday, one player removed her shirt and practiced in her sports bra.

“It wasn’t this hot yesterday, was it?” hollered Ferris teammate Rachel Lassman, who was out of breath.