Does NCAA have any regulations concerning heat index and the need for water breaks? I had a D1 women's match yesterday. Game time was 1pm. Both coaches requested water breaks, so we went ahead with it. I just didn't know if there was anything in the rules that required mandatory water breaks based on heat index. We have this in high school sports already. And I know that the pro leagues have regulations as well (although they call it a "hydration break").
It's not in the soccer rule book, but is NCAA policy. Here is the NCAA heat guidelines. https://www.khsaa.org/sportsmedicine/heat/ncaapreventionofheatillness.pdf I have seen other circulars specific to football and soccer. Note they say a wet globe bulb temp above 82F requires careful monitoring and above 90F is considered dangerous, and that hydration every 15-20 minutes is recommended. The break gets close to that. It can be hotter on the pitch than at the weather bureau. As implemented in soccer, coaches are following those guidelines and the Protocols from the 2011 USSF circular on hydration in youth matches. It's been pretty much automatic at 90F. Experience going to practices shows they strictly follow them always. Since there is no stoppage time, I often see the break around the 23-25 minute mark of each half instead of FIFA's 30 and 75 minutes. And you can still call a break even if the coaches haven't asked. As an aside, I notice that the local university has been watering the grass with the automatic sprinkler system before each half in hot weather this year to keep field temperature down. The last WC was under Brasilian court mandate to impliment breaks when the wgbt was above 32C (89.7f). though FIFA still insisted they were optional, they followed the court order.
I don't ref college, but this one falls within the laws of common sense for me. If the conditions call for it and both coaches are supportive, I would absolutely allow a hydration break.
I can't see watering grass fields being a good thing. You might lower the temperature but the added water I imagine would add to the heat index due to the increased relative humidity. Turf fields on the other hand I can't believe we even play on them during warm weather. At president's cup Regionals we had two turf fields that were were the source of most heat related injuries.
We had some club friendlies this weekend. Temps in the high 90s, I'm guessing wet bulb over 100. Water breaks were required. In our last game yesterday on turf (the assignor put himself on the field along with a couple of us old guys) we had two water breaks in 35 minute halves. No complaints from the coaches. When we walked on the field you could feel the waves of heat coming up. We got a spritzing of rain in the first half, which was nice while it happened, but only served to jack up the humidity a little more. On Sunday the Tournament Organizer insisted on stopped clock for the water breaks. Most of the other coaches said no, run clock. A couple said if you have a fast clock we won't complain. They were in their third game of the weekend and had seen what they were going to see.
I've seen an Astroturf field being watered before the game. The school's response was that it reduced injuries from sliding on the stuff. They have since gone with a FieldTurf surface. Astroturf is really nasty stuff. It's like playing on a Brillo pad. Week before last, I had a D1 women's game on turf with an air temp of 102. I had an admittedly old pair of Climacools that had a thicker sole than anything else I had, so I wore them. By the second half, the glue had melted enough that the soles were separating from the upper. Last time I'll wear those shoes. The coaches agreed on water breaks before the game. I was just happy that we didn't go to overtime. (The only goal was scored in the 79th minute.) You could always stop for a 'television time out.'
I was an AR the last pool play match for a1pm 90 minute game. Two water breaks per half, spent the second half mostly at the half line, neither team had any sense of urgency since the score was already a lot to nothing so at the second water break in the second half the coaches requested the referee not to add any stoppage time. (First half the center added five minutes we were instructed to add time for the water breaks and injuries) Despite all that according to the team manager I looked pretty rough and they had brought every member of the crew bags of ice to cool off with.
Well, first off, WGBT is the measure of heat index. Whatever lowers that is what you shoot for. On Turf fields, several manufacturers, including Field Turf TM say that proper traction on the Turf REQUIRES watering the field, even if it isn't hot. ( unless it's raining). Cleats stick too much otherwise with some products. And studies show that reducing Turf temperatures help prevent injuries. They also recommend regular watering for anti static ( with or without additives) and to keep crumbs down to avoid ingestion. Also, Turf fields can measure over 160F or higher even when the ambient temperature nearby is only 86F http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93364750 Products like Eco fill ( mostly sand) and cool fill synthetic grass can help. Rubber crumb infill tends to be hotter. If they weren't watering, it probably wasn't following manufacturer's recommendations. You can get contact burns from Turf at temperatures as low as 115F. BYU studied their Turf fields, and found that at 86F the Turf can be as hot as 174F and can cool to 84F right after watering, but the effect is temporary and in five minutes can rise to 125F.that might be an extreme in their climate. They water often. And their studies show grass is much cooler. Note they water the field on any dry day before each half at Timbers matches, and it is arguably the best such field in the country. As to watering a grass field, I guess it would again depend on where you are. In low humidity areas it would take huge amounts of water to measurably raise the humidity at head level, and dropping wgbt at field level is the most important consideration. Grass is still a bit hotter than ambient air. Though people think of Portland as a wet climate, Portland usually has relatively low humidity when it's hot. The heat comes off the dry high plains to the East. As the water evaporates, it carries off heat to the ambient dryer environment. I don't have much experience in humid areas, but I do remember in Washington DC and Houston, you were miserable no matter what measures you took. So other considerations come into play, including cloud cover and wind speed, which will carry away both moisture and the heat in it. http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tsa/?n=wbgt You can use this calculator to get a feel for how much water it takes to raise relative humidity. http://www.lenntech.com/calculators/humidity/relative-humidity.htm Note that above 90 wgbt the military even restricts activity of soldiers.
Hoo boy, I wouldn't even take a game on a turf field right now. No way. In another life I used to shoot a lot of sports photos. On hot days on turf fields it was tough to get a sharp distance shot with the long lens, because the heat waves coming off the turf would distort the air so much. (For those days I also had an umbrella attachment I had rigged for my monopod.)
That's fine for national security and stuff, but c'mon, there are scholarships at stake here Hey I'm curious, have any of your clubs bought handheld Wet Globe Bulb thingy-dingies? Temp and humidity are easy to look up but don't tell the whole picture, and the "find-the-WGBT" matrices I've found seem to assume full sun, moral rectitude, or other things that aren't always realistic.
That's a lot more than I knew before. I've never noticed any sort of water sprinkler systems on any artificial turf fields that I have worked on. I sure wish though that they did have then to cool off the fields. I have know more than one person to gave claimed their shoe soles melted while playing or officiating on turf fields on hot days. As far as grad fields go, my knowledge is more anecdotal and it should be noted I work almost exclusively in the southeast where it is usually significantly more humid on average than other areas of the country. In situations where the natural grass fields were watered midday, it felt more humid afterwards.
I have seen staff ( I assume it was staff) at the university of portland using the thingy dinghies. Merlo is the Grass pitch I was referring to. They don't really use the Turf practice field in dry weather except maybe kids running laps for rehab. They have grass fields for scrimmages unless they are inundated. And they have their own wells and a watering system schedulesd around practice times. But you probably don't need complex measuring equipment. If it feels hot, talk to the coaches. I'm pretty sure they won't object to a break. It's pretty common now. And as I said, 90F seems to make it pretty automatic. That might be what was in a circular I bookmarked a while ago but is now a dead link.
At Providence park they use a couple fire hoses with a spray nozzle. I think it might be quicker. Once when I was there they sprayed the Timbers Army to a big cheer. I should probably take a picture next week and I'll post it. At halftime yesterday I was talking to the Athletic director at the rail behind the bench and saw the sprinklers turn on. I put my arms out and waited. The AD , who had his back to the pitch, wondered what I was doing until we both got hit. We had a nice laugh.
I did a Has G varsity match this morning on a turf field that was nearly black from an over abundance of rubber pellets. I don't know how these fields are to be maintained but this one had not been touched in years. But they must have added the rubber. I had to brush away the black from one end line to get down to the color below. A player went down with an ankle injury and when she came up she was covered in black. Oh, it was also 10:00 am and unbelievably hot.
Yeah. Some places put turf fields in as a cost measure. The trouble is, it's only a cost savings if you just let the fields sit and don't maintain them. As a result, lots of fields with FIFA one and two star ratings don't measure up to them in short order and have to be replaced.LOTS of pitches don't meet any standard of play. ( but then I played on gravel quarries in my youth) And Turf doesn't seem to last as well as advertised. Providence Park has had its field replaced every three years despite following all the protocols to maintain its 2 star rating ( 2 star + is what would call it) they have a contract with the city that the pitch must always have a 2 star rating. They keep looking into using hybrid technology and even grow lights, but it looks like as long as football is played there, they are stuck with Turf. But as annoying as Turf might be in hot weather, Providence hasn't gone to grass because history has shown the NW climate is just not very conducive to grass and heavy use in the wet, cold, and low sun times of year. Grass goes dormant and doesn't recover.College and HS Football is also played on the pitch. (merlo restricts play on the grass field to the 4 games a week) I can post a bunch of mud bowl pictures, including old NASL matches on the Providence pitch, but I'll let people interest find them. They went to artificial surfaces 35 years ago because grass was so bad. Tanner creek runs under the stadium, and before it was built, it was a chineses community vegetable garden that grew all the water intensive crops the Chinese are known for.
Queens College in Charlotte N.C., turf field. First game of the season, 95 air temp, 125 on the field turf. My assessor comes out to do an assessment, it goes into Overtime. Bright sun, no clouds, no shade. To this day, I still don't know how I got through that game.
Field turf says there should be 3/4" of grass blades above the crumbs. If the blades are getting bent or packed down, it past time to replace the field. I doubt the added crumbs. Here are their maintenance guidelines. Lots of nice picture on what a field should look like and the maintenance required that rarely happens in real life. http://www.fieldturf.com/sites/fieldturf/assets/FT_Maintenance Guidelines.pdf
Actually, football wants 1/2" blade length and soccer wants 3/4", at least according to the manufacturers. There are also newer generations of turf "grass" in which the blades are designed to split over time, making them more "natural." With regard to Providence Park, specifically, it's physically at the bottom of a (big) hole. That means that in rainy Portland, water comes in from all sides, with no place to go from the playing surface. The roofing over the stands then keeps sunlight to a minimum and, essentially, only exposes the east side, and of course, the sun is warmer when it's in the west. It was almost always muddy down there, until they went with Astroturf, which quickly got worn down to the nubbins. We played the high school state championships there for many years, but the games were a travesty, particularly since this was the only game that the teams had played on that type of surface all year. Another factoid: Astroturf is twice the cost of FieldTurf, so the Astroturf people saw themselves losing market share rapidly and they came up with their own product, I believe under the name SpinTurf. Very early on, FieldTurf used ground up Nike shoes, mixed with sand but the supply of shoes quickly ran short, leading to the black pellets we hate today.
Providence park back when it was known as Multnomah Stadium. ( that's two guys in a boat) And here is a mudbowl match between UofO and OSU in the twenties. The University of Portland just installed AstroTurf on its baseball field to extend the playing season. It's a completely diferent product. Short nap, minimal crumb infill. More like carpet. You just couldn't play soccer on that.
But many games were played on it back in the old NASL, including in the actual AstroDome where it was first used. The bounce was too high making control difficult and different. Some refs let some air out of the ball to compensate for this, but the power shooters would complain! Also the players covered their legs with grease to prevent "carpet burns" from slides and falls. Many goalies wore long warm-up pants. It was also hard on the feet and joints due to the hardness, as well as being hot in hot weather. People used to line their shoes with aluminium foil to try to keep their feet cooler. Everyone hated it, players and referees. Some very good games were played on it, but it was always a relief and pleasure when a game was on real grass. PH
Yeah, I played a Long Island HS Lacrosse championship on the second AstroTurf Installation in the country at Hofstra University in the sixties. It was supposed to be a big treat. It felt like indoor-outdoor carpet laid over asphalt, which is what it was. I came away with road burns like I had dropped a motorcycle on the highway. And the ball bounced all the way across campus after a shot. I can't believe PELE played games on that pitch for the Cosmos.
I recall reading back then that Pele played his first game on that old crappy artificial turf in regular cleats. (IIRC, he was not yet fluent in English, and didn't know any better since it wouldn't be seen anywhere outside the US.) And someone let him borrow shoes at half time.
We wore fishheads. https://poshmark.com/listing/50fec102bdb60047de004b04 I do remember one thing, though. If you skimmed the lacrosse ball on a two bouncer towards goal, the spin on the second bounce would propel the ball up at about an 80 degree angle. If that bounce was right in front of the keeper, you could score over his shoulder.