MitchMash: Son and wife of Korey Stringer fight heat-related illness battle

Timing is everything, and doesn't Kelci Stringer know it.

Aug. 1 marked the 10th anniversary that her then-husband and NFL star Korey Stringer died due to complications of heat stroke.

It was the same week her 13-year-old son Kodie started high school football practice at Woodward Academy in College Park, Ga., a state that has led the nation in heat-related deaths among prep football players over the last 15 years.

Kelci, 37, has led a charge to raise awareness and help create national policy on the topic by establishing the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut two years ago.

The Georgia High School Association, in fact, has been the national leader in strict changes, beginning this summer with regulations on practice time in pads and general acclimatization. All that is good, but Kelci is well aware that a three-year study commissioned by the GHSA found that heat-related deaths among football players tripled nationwide from 1994 to 2009.

Since 2006, at least 20 high school football players have died from exertional heat stroke, according to the University of North Carolina's National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research.

"Clearly we see these deaths and people think not much has changed, but I do feel like a lot of lives have been saved due to Korey's demise," Kelci told The Early Show on CBS last week. "When Korey died, there wasn't a lot of discussion, not a lot of talk of what to do in regards of what to do in the heat. Now it's in the forefront."

But as her young son approaches the formidable year of athletics, she still wrestles with a sport that was a love of Korey's life but also associated with what took it away prematurely.

It left Kodie without a father, Kelci without a husband, and a world turned upside down. But Kodie never strayed from football and has played in organized leagues since the age of 6. He's not in love with the sport, his mother says. Instead he wants to be an actor.

"My purpose is not to be the Antichrist to football," she said. "I like sports. I like football. Kodie is a big kid (reported 6-foot-1, 280 pounds with a size 14 shoe) and there's not many other things he can do related to sports.

"But every year it is so hard for me as a mother. I never really watch practice. I just kind of sit in the car. I almost feel like a bad mother sometimes because it's like ‘Oh my God. How can I let him play in the heat given the information I'm privileged to know?'"

Instead of wallowing, Kelci stays positive and active, helping to educate coaches and other people responsible for Kodie about the need for proper water breaks and suitable equipment during peak heat times.

She leans on the experts at the KSI and elsewhere to do the heavy lifting on changing a culture and raising awareness. The fact that she allows her son to play football – in Georgia no less – shows that she has faith in the system, said Bud Cooper, a University of Georgia clinical coordinator who along with Michael Ferrara conducted GHSA's three-year study on heat illness.

"I think it's a feather in her cap that she is trying to raise awareness and make every sport safer at every level for every athlete," Cooper said.

A Center for Disease Control study found that heat illness is the leading cause of death and disability among American high school athletes, sickening more than 9,000 annually. Football players are at the highest risk. Experts warn that all student athletes are at risk – depending on heat, humidity and physical condition – but exertional heat stroke death is preventable, especially if state athletic associations take action.

Rebecca Stearns, director of education at the Korey Stringer Institute, is encouraged that seven states have adopted acclimatization guidelines promoted by the KSI. Those are Arizona, New Jersey, Texas, Connecticut, Georgia, North Carolina and New Mexico.

Those states require the first five days of practices to last no more than two hours and without pads, which add considerable heat to the body core.

"If you acclimatize athletes prior to the start of intense training and exercise – if you let their bodies adjust to their environment – you can reduce a lot of heat illnesses, injuries and potential cases of heat stroke," Stearns said. "That's one of the biggest things we're doing to protect athletes."

By now, most of the players throughout the nation are acclimated to the heat, but Cooper warns that heat illness is still a major threat throughout the rest of the summer. That is why Georgia football teams are now required to use a wet bulb globe temperature monitor at every practice.

The gauge incorporates air temperature, humidity and radiant temperature and a reading above 92 will cancel an outdoor practice. That's equivalent to a 105-degree index.

The heat index the day Korey Stringer collapsed 10 years ago was 110 degrees.

Learning to read the monitors and costs (at least $200 per devise) will be difficult at first, but as Cooper said: "Is $200 too expensive for preventing a death to heat stroke? I would say no."

So would Kelci Stringer, who reached a settlement with the NFL in 2009 following a $100 million lawsuit against the Vikings. She's engaged to be married and has a 9-month-old child with her fiancé.

Through it all, she'll be able to keep her former husband's legacy and spirit alive, and equally important, opened vast discussion on a national sports safety issue.

"Now there is a lot of dialogue of what to do (in the heat)," she said. "As we go forward, hopefully we can all be on the same page with the same information."