Chad Wiley, an offensive lineman for the North Carolina A&T Aggies, died of heat-related illness yesterday at 5 a.m. following a workout 18 hours earlier where, aside from some dizziness, he showed no signs of illness. Wiley, 22, passed out several minutes after the end of the practice and did not wake up. The temperature at practice was 86 degrees: warm, but not comparable to the crushing heat many teams work out in during summer workouts.

The News-Record digs into the stats and pathology of heat-stroke in admirably clinical fashion in response. Facts you probably did not know: as ghastly as a football player dying from heatstroke or heat-related illness is, the chances remain tiny at 1 in 350,000 football players. Factors potentially at play: lack of an adjustment time to the heat.

“In the first few days, the body will increase blood flow to the skin to give off heat,” Rosenbaum said. “On day two and day three, you sweat more. It takes about a week or 10 days before the body is able to handle (the heat) as well as it can. That’s why we recommend when it’s hot to start slow and gradually build intensity and duration of exercise.”

Another factor: sickle-cell anemia, which Rosenbaum mentions Wake Forest may begin screening for in incoming football players.

He actually rides like this everywhere in Georgia. More pics from the Middle East Monsters of Coaching Tour show that Mark Richt and Tommy Tuberville ride through the Near East just as they do through Alabama and Georgia: carried aloft on acolytes’ shoulders.


Image from Online Athens.

Washington State decides to head off Fulmer Cup points by withdrawing a scholarship to Calvin Schmidtke, a qb recruit who in the past 18 months has been cited 11 times for drug and alcohol-related offenses, seven of which involve a car. Riding dirty aside, this means both that Paul Wulff is (harumph! harumph!) serious about discipline in Pullman, and that Schmidtke was totally the guy you wanted to hang out with on weekends in high school.

He also wears a bandana. Brah.

We beg to differ. Chan Gailey, now coaching for the Kansas City Chiefs, needs a hug.

“I told the players: I don’t have any kind of magic offense,” Gailey said. “I don’t have any pixie dust that I sprinkle and all of a sudden we become good. We have to work at it. There’s nothing magic about what we’ve got.”

Au contraire! His offense always seemed fairly magickal to us. Especially the part where–POOF!–any chance to score or win instantly disappeared! Criss Angel wanted to know how you got so mindfreaky, Chan.