Friday Night Lights, Rising Heat — High School Athletics in a Changing Climate

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In this final episode of Temperature Check: Coastal Edition, host Natalia Sanchez Loayza steps into one of North Carolina’s most cherished traditions: high school sports. But instead of focusing on touchdowns and rivalries, she takes us behind the scenes to examine how climate change is reshaping the very conditions under which student athletes train and compete.

Natalia sits down with Jana Fonseca, Director of Health, Safety, and Wellness at the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) and a licensed athletic trainer.

Through Fonseca’s lens, we learn how rising temperatures and humidity are changing the rhythms of high school sports. Extreme heat doesn’t just disrupt practices—it poses real danger. Heat exhaustion and heat stroke are now seasonal concerns that schools must actively prepare for. Fonseca breaks down how policies, like the wet bulb globe temperature guidelines and exercise acclimatization protocols, are being implemented (and sometimes challenged) across a state where climate conditions can differ dramatically from the mountains to the coast. Fonseca reflects on the critical role of athletic trainers and the need for more resources and education, especially in underserved areas.

And then she connects it all back—to farmworkers, to construction crews, to anyone laboring outdoors in the Southern heat. The same attention given to student athletes, she suggests, should be extended to those whose jobs expose them to similar risks.

As Temperature Check: Coastal Edition concludes, this episode reminds us that climate change isn’t only transforming the natural world—it’s redefining how we live, play, work, and care for one another.

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