Worst Fear of a Coach Realized : Tragedy: San Fernando High football player died of heatstroke despite safety measures Hernandez said he took at practice.

In the wake of the heat-induced death of a San Fernando High football player this week, area coaches expressed sympathy for Coach Tom Hernandez and his team.

“My heart goes out to Tom and those kids,” Kennedy Coach Bob Francola said Friday. “Any coach who blows a whistle fears this kind of thing every day. We all live in fear of this and spinal-cord injuries.”

Sergio Echevarria, a senior who was trying out for football at the school for the first time, collapsed among team members at about 1:45 Tuesday afternoon, shortly after practice had ended. Hernandez said because of temperatures that peaked at 102 degrees he had cut practice short after 45 minutes of conditioning drills, including a mile run.

Echevarria, 17, died at about 2 a.m. Thursday at Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills. An autopsy performed Friday attributed cause of death to acute heat stroke, according to coroner’s spokesman Scott Carrier.

Hernandez said he and two assistants were watching the 65 players, who were not wearing pads, and that no one appeared overly fatigued.

“I don’t understand what happened,” Hernandez said. “I thought we were being real careful.”

Echevarria, a 6-foot, 185-pound linebacker who began conditioning drills with the San Fernando team earlier this summer, sought membership on the football team because he wanted to escape pressure to join a gang, according to neighborhood friends.

Echevarria joined the team “so he could start a new life. So he could make new friends,” said Robert Macias, 16, a junior who lived next door to Echevarria in Pacoima.

San Fernando is one of 17 City Section schools in the Valley that began practice Tuesday, the first day of the school year. City rules limit practice to conditioning drills for the first week only. Monday is the first day contact drills with full equipment are allowed.

Southern Section schools will begin practice Monday with three days of conditioning. Contact drills are permitted Thursday.

Before the Los Angeles Unified School District adopted its year-round calendar last year, City schools opened practice as long as two weeks after their Southern Section counterparts.

In addition, the year-round calendar has eliminated the so-called hell week sessions, during which teams practice twice daily, once in the morning and again in late afternoon.

Currently, teams are limited to one daily after-school practice, often during the hottest time of the day. Many City schools, including San Fernando, have shortened school days this week because of the excessive heat. Consequently, football players hit the practice field in the afternoon even earlier than normal.

Football practice for San Fernando began at about 12:20 p.m. Tuesday, according to Hernandez. He originally planned to conduct a 2 1/2-hour session but because of the heat cut practice short.

“It was the shortest practice we ever had,” said Hernandez, who is entering his 11th season at San Fernando. “I don’t see anything I could have done different.”

Assistant principal Paul Swanson said Hernandez had used “good judgment” and that the precautionary measures Hernandez took fell within the school district’s policy regarding hot weather and avoiding heat stress.

Around the Valley area, coaches said they also have taken safety precautions, including increasing the frequency of water and rest breaks as the temperatures rise. In addition, many are cutting practices short and eliminating wind sprints and long-distance runs.

Some coaches, including North Hollywood’s Gary Gray, allow players to withdraw from a drill any time they choose.

Monroe Coach Dave Lertzman postponed the start of practices, keeping his team in the relative cool of the locker room until later in the afternoon. “It’s just too hot out there,” he said.

Water jugs and tanks--even hoses--have become commonplace on the practice field. Many coaches allow their players to soak their bodies and clothing during practice to keep cool.

“Twenty years ago coaches thought it wasn’t macho to get a drink,” Granada Hills co-Coach Tom Harp said. “Things have changed a lot since then.”

Kennedy players have adopted what Francola calls the “desert mode.”

“Normally, I don’t allow them to wear any rags or bandannas,” Francola said. “But I’ve insisted that they wear wet T-shirts or something wet on their heads.”

Poly Coach Fred Cuccia said the last couple of weeks have been “unseasonably hot” but that Tuesday was noticeably the worst day of all. Van Nuys Coach George Engbrecht agreed.

“Usually we end every practice with conditioning and running,” Engbrecht said. “But I could really feel it . . . Tuesday, so we just ended it.”

Practice was canceled at San Fernando on Wednesday and Thursday, but players were back on the field Friday after a crisis-intervention counselor from school district headquarters spoke to the team to “try to get them to accept the concept of death,” according to Swanson.

Staff writer Kevin Baxter contributed to this story.

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