Alabama football to adopt HeatSense, cutting edge heat safety technology

Melissa Fortenberry saw a problem and sought a solution, a solution Alabama football is buying into. 

Fortenberry invented HeatSense, a fitness tracker that measures athletes’ individual core body temperature with the “goal of proactively managing heat strain.” In August, Alabama will be Heat Sense’s first customer. 

“They are all in,” Fortenberry told The Tuscaloosa News. “They very much want their player health to be at the top of the list.” 

With a background in technology, Fortenberry came up with the idea of HeatSense as a fan, watching her three kids play youth sports in from the stands. She became sick, feeling dizzy and nauseous and coming to the conclusion that the pads and turf were hotter for athletes on the field. 

Fortenberry conducted her own research and saw more reactive solutions than proactive. 

“You can see heat strain forming in people and proactively cool them or keep pushing, where today, you’re flying blind,” Fortenberry said. 

Jeff Allen, senior associate athletic director for health and performance and Alabama football’s head athletic trainer, has already been on the forefront of innovation for player safety, introducing the injury tent in 2015 to allow training staff and medical personnel to examine athletes privately on the sideline during games. 

When Carson Tinker, a former Alabama and NFL long snapper and Fortenberry’s neighbor, heard about her idea, Allen was the first person Tinker thought of.

“Jeff was like, ‘Man, this sounds super interesting. Keep me in the loop with this,’” Tinker said. “It’s something he felt he knew that he could use. That was over a year ago now. … Now it’s all kind of come together. It’s crazy how it all kind of works out.”

“Once we got Jeff’s attention, he was really intrigued,” Fortenberry said, adding Allen “wants to be on the forefront of making the game better.” 

Members of the HeatSense team attended an Alabama practice during its fourth-quarter program in March and put sensors on 10 players. 

“I think the feedback they heard from players was validated in what we saw,” Fortenberry said. 

Tinker views this not only as a safety tool, but an advantage overall to find a player’s peak body temperature.

“You want to be able to use the heat to your advantage. You want to be able to play your best in all conditions, but nobody knows until it’s too late and you got to get through in the cold tub because you overheated.”

Alabama is just the start for HeatSense, which has the goal of reaching three to five Division I programs this summer. 

According to Weather Spark, the average temperature in Tuscaloosa eclipses 90 degrees during Alabama’s fall camp. Fortenberry now has a way for the Crimson Tide to respond. 

“People, I think, are afraid of the heat, but you don’t know you can do something about it,” she said. “Now you can.” 

Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@gannett.com or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter or Instagram @colingaytnews.