West Virginia president Gordon Gee discusses what could happen if football player tests positive for COVID-19
By Adam Spencer
Published:
When it comes to getting football started in 2020, no one has been more adamant about getting it back than West Virginia president E. Gordon Gee.
He recently said there would be football even if he has to suit up himself. Fortunately, though, it doesn’t seem it will come to that.
During an appearance on “The Paul Finebaum Show” on Monday, Gee discussed what would potentially happen should a player test positive for COVID-19 once football is allowed to return:
West Virginia President @gordongee offers thoughts on the possibility of a student-athlete testing positive for coronavirus when college sports resume: pic.twitter.com/ZOE0glYv26
— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) May 18, 2020
“I think we’re learning how to control it,” Gee said. “And one thing is that we need to get over the panic. We just need to be calm about this thing. It is here. It’s gonna deal with it. If one of our athletes — for example, we’re talking about football right now — if one of our athletes gets the coronavirus, we can’t just shut the whole thing down. We have to learn to control that part of what we’re doing.
“Someone is going to come down with coronavirus, let’s just be clear about it. But the question is how do we handle that? Do we have isolation rooms? Do we put them into quarantine? … Then the final thing, in terms of college football, is how do we make sure our own team and the visiting teams both are given all the opportunity to protect themselves from the virus, but also to be able to play the game in a safe environment.”
Having a player test positive for COVID-19 is a worst-case scenario for programs that hope to return, so we’ll see what sorts of procedures are put in place for that possibility.
Adam is a daily fantasy sports (DFS) and sports betting expert. A 2012 graduate of the University of Missouri, Adam now covers all 16 SEC football teams. He is the director of DFS, evergreen and newsletter content across all Saturday Football brands.
