Heat Safety & Prep

Texas High School Football Player's Cleats Melt in 105-Degree Heat

Football is religion in Texas, but in a northern Dallas suburb, one high school's football players are probably just praying for the recent brutal heat to end.

Allen High School's football team held its first practice of the year Monday afternoon in triple-digit heat, and senior cornerback Anthony Taylor noticed his cleats were melting while they were on his feet, according to Bleacher Report.

Anthony Taylor's shoe after it was melted by the heat.
(Twitter/Mike Harrison)

On Monday afternoon, high temperatures in Allen reached 105 degrees, the hottest of the year so far, according to Weather Underground observations.

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Temperatures reached 105 degrees on the first day of practice only one other time in the last 13 years, the Dallas Morning News said. The brutal August heat prompted the Dallas Independent School District to ban practices from noon to 6 p.m., the report added, but Allen High School is not in that district. The three-time defending state champions have been holding some practices in the afternoon, which led to the shoe-melting incident.

“We researched literature and talked to institutions and universities,” Phil Francis, the head athletic trainer for the DISD athletic department, told the Dallas Morning News. “[Noon-6 p.m.] is getting to be the hottest part of the day. This is preseason. Kids need to get used to the hot weather.”

It's unclear if the team was practicing on its grass practice fields or inside its $60 million, 18,000-seat stadium, which has an artificial FieldTurf surface that can heat up faster than grass.

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