Elba head football coach Marc Sieving and his team received a rare benefit at Monday’s practice, courtesy of Hurricane Debby.

“Yesterday, it was really nice because we got a little wind from that Hurricane,” he said. “I told the kids that I turned the air conditioner on for them. You could tell the difference with just that little breeze. They were jumping all around.”

The wind provided a rare break from the soaring summer temperatures with Elba and every other high school football team around the state now on the practice fields ahead of opening week Aug. 22-23.

Highs on Tuesday were forecasted to reach the mid-to-upper 90s across a large portion of the state and temperatures in Mobile and south Alabama were likely to reach 100. Heat advisories were in effect Tuesday for several counties in Southwest Alabama.

The safety of the student-athletes is certainly a concern for new executive director Heath Harmon and the Alabama High School Athletic Association.

“Part of our mission is the health and safety of our students and that should be a priority at the forefront of everything we do with athletics,” Harmon told AL.com on Tuesday afternoon. “For me, it’s really our expectation that the local school administration makes sure they are governing fall sports practice and activities, and coaches make sure they are making the best decisions when it comes to keeping their athletes safe with the heat. That is a priority.”

The AHSAA has mandated modifications for practice in a hot environment, all of which can be found on the AHSAA website. Here is the basic information coaches need to know. The document was updated in May.

Heat index less than 91: Basic heat safety and planning.

Heat index 91-103: Maximum practice time 2 hours with equipment limited to helmet, shorts and shoulder pads. All equipment removed for conditioning.

Heat index 103-125: Maximum practice 1 hour with helmets only. Must be 20 minutes of breaks distributed throughout the hour.

Heat index greater than 126: No outdoor practice.

According to Spanish Fort athletic trainer Rob Milam, the heat index at his school’s practice was 112 at 5 p.m. on Monday and didn’t dip below 103 until after 6 p.m.

“That document was discussed – and this pre-dates me – but it was discussed at the medical advisory meeting that would have been in January,” Harmon said. “That document was presented and approved by our Central Board. It’s very important that our coaches have a means of measuring that heat index. That document provides the guidelines, and you can use that to decide what modifications you need to make. There are different types of modifications our coaches use – change the time of day they practice or things like that. So, we are asking everyone to make sure they have a means of measuring the heat and that they are making the best decisions with keeping their athletes safe.

The heat has caused schools across the state to adjust to the conditions while still trying to get their teams prepared to start the season.

“There are a number of things we do to make sure we are dealing with the heat,” Vestavia Hills coach Robert Evans said. “If it is a scorcher of a day, we ‘flip the day’ and practice before school and then do our meetings and weights in the afternoon. We also tend to have shorter practices this time of year because of the heat. We go strictly by the AHSAA regulations with the wet bulb temperature and follow all of the guidelines set forth by the state. We also keep lots of protein, Gatorade and water in our facility to make sure we are accommodating our players’ needs.”

Sieving said, with a smaller roster, he and his staff are particularly cautious.

“We’ve got 36 players, so our guys play both ways,” he said. “For us, it’s literally something I’ve researched and our staff has researched to make sure we are doing everything we possibly can for our kids. One thing we do is forced hydration. Over the course of the day, we see our guys five different times. We literally have a coach making them drink three cups of water, and we do that every meeting on every day.”

Veteran Madison Academy coach Bob Godsey said his team hasn’t changed its practice schedule yet but is keeping a close eye on the heat and making sure there are more water breaks during practice.

“We’re obviously very in tune to the heat, and we’re counting on our preparation up to this point, the things that we have done all spring and all summer to prepare us for this,” Godsey said. “Obviously, we’re very, very in tune with keeping the players hydrated.

“We try to educate them on the preparation before practice in terms of hydrating, eating, getting plenty of rest before practice, staying hydrated during practice, and then starting that process completely over after practice. We spend a lot of time, and there’s a lot of emphasis, on that. That has always worked for us in the past. We do the cold tubs and things like that after practice as well. Pretty much standard stuff.”

Milam said he constantly monitors the temperatures at Spanish Fort.

“We build in many water breaks depending on the times of practice,” he said. “We have an ice bath on standby for the entire practice and for an hour after practice is over. We have cooling stations, tents with misters, ice towels so the kids can cool off during water breaks. We take every precaution we can to help prevent a heat related illness.”

The weather may not cool off anytime soon.

According to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, there is a 50 to 60 percent chance that Alabama will have hotter-than-average temperatures for the month of August. The probabilities are even higher in the south part of the state.

Bayshore Christian head coach Phil Lazenby has been a high school head coach in Alabama for more than a quarter of a century.

“You have to make sure you watch them closely,” he said of his athletes. “You watch how they walk. You get to know them, and you know when they are acting normal and when they are not. … You can’t take a chance. We know it’s hot because it’s hot on us, too. We have a pretty good idea of when it’s time for a break, so we give them plenty of breaks.”

Pisgah coach Luke Pruitt’s team was still in shorts Tuesday.

“We’ve been acclimated to it, because we’re out here in it all summer, so that hasn’t been an issue for us,” he said. “That’s something that we tell them, that’s one of those external factors that we can’t control. You’ve got to come to work every day and do what you’re supposed to do and not let the things that you can’t control affect the way that you practice and prepare. That’s something that we tell them day in, day out.”