Reporter Michael Casey first had the idea of looking at the impact of more extremely hot days on high school sports at a climate brainstorm two years ago, and through persistence with developing sources, good planning and thorough reporting alongside local journalists Gerald Herbert and Stephen Smith in the South was able to produce a detailed, visually compelling and emotional account of how families, sports teams and school boards cope with heat-related death.
Casey started developing contacts with families over the past two years but had to overcome several access restrictions and logistical hurdles as some families had ongoing court cases regarding their sons’ deaths that made it difficult to get families to talk publicly and intimately about their stories. He also faced an uphill struggle to prove the deaths were in fact heat-related, as heat doesn’t often feature on a death certificate even when it contributes to a death.
Through following multiple stories of high school football players around the country, Casey was able to find families that were willing to talk and could provide proof of heat being a factor in their sons’ deaths. The result was emotional, in-depth stories of how a heat-related death can leave families and teammates shocked, worried for the future as years get hotter, and fighting for better safeguards in place, like on-site ice baths and better monitoring systems to determine when it’s too hot to play.
The result was a moving, visual and impactful story that put people’s lives, passions at the center of the story of climate change and how every aspect of life can be affected.
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