Texas summers are hot. High school football players in the state have to suffer through summer workouts amid triple-digit heat, sometimes creating a legitimate safety concern in the process.
Even so, most high temps aren't enough to melt the shoes on players' feet. In Allen, Texas, that's exactly what happened.
Allen Eagles Football practice scorching hot@nikefootball @_anthonytaylor_ worked so hard he melted his shoe pic.twitter.com/KZ5z1gZTtH
— mike harrison (@EgleDoc) August 10, 2015
The Dallas Morning News reports that the first day of official high school football in the state saw 106-degree temps in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, a record.
Part of the problem here is the football field's artificial turf: Synthetic fields tend to get much hotter than natural grass during the summer. In fact, synthetic turf can sometimes reach temperatures more than 50 degrees hotter than what natural grass would experience.
In perfect conditions, fake turf can get hot enough to cook meat.
Melting shoes is rare, but according to Allen head coach Tom Westerberg, it isn't unheard of.
"[We've] played in some hot games where a few shoes got a little melted," said Westerberg to the Morning News, while suggesting it might have just been a single bad shoe causing the hub-bub.
And sure, maybe that's true. But when estimates are pegging the football field's surface temperature as possibly passing 150 degrees Fahrenheit, it seems a bit nit-picky to blame the shoe.
Hot is hot. But another football player the Morning News talked to didn't seem bothered.
"I didn't even feel it," he said. "It's football weather."
Tell that to the Green Bay Packers.
