FBS program suspends voluntary workouts due to positive coronavirus tests
After the spring sports shutdown, voluntary workouts were the first step toward the return of college sports, including football. Now, one Group of 5 program is suspending workouts again.
The University of Houston Department of Athletics announced Friday that it is immediately suspending all voluntary workouts for student-athletes. Houston says the decision comes “out of an abundance of caution.” Houston details that the decision was made in consultation with internal and external medical experts and comes after 6 symptomatic UH student-athletes have tested positive for COVID-19. Houston’s announcement only uses the term “student-athletes,” not confirming if they were football players.
The university also notes the increase in the number of positive tests in the greater Houston area over the last week. Houston says the impacted students have been placed in isolation and contact tracing procedures have been initiated following protocol.
“During this pause in voluntary workouts, UH Athletics will continue its stringent cleaning and sanitization protocols in all facilities.”
Football players at multiple SEC programs have reportedly tested positive upon returning to campus.
Gotta feeling this won’t be only one.
Most cases will be the ones that are in a major city. University of Houston is in a major city.
Not if you are going to be stupid and not test players before putting them all together when you are in Houston Tx…good grief. Stupid.
I just received an email from somebody in the know locally that said that before the quarantines began in March, 5 or 6 Vanderbilt athletes had tested positive, not necessarily all football players, but that the McGugin Center was forced to undergo massive disinfection. So few athletes were tested, basically only symptomatic students, that this spooked the university.
Vanderbilt is in the largest city in the SEC, but it is by far the smallest campus. In essence, the big public universities are cities in themselves. The other 13 campuses are all more populated than the entire county my wife came from.
Would you be willing to pay $1,000 to the SEC to create an indemnity insurance account for the league to then purchase through a giant insurer a policy that would compensate players, coaches, officials, and their families so that a season could be played with no fans in the stands?
Would you be okay with the game being lengthened to 5 hours or more in length to add on all the extra time it might take to keep games sanitized? After every change of possession, all the balls in the game would have to be sanitized and then thoroughly dried so they won’t be slippery. All players coming out of the game would have to use alcohol on their hands and wipe all exposed sweat.
This wouldn’t work for me. I cannot see it working for the over 35 administrators and officials, or anybody with an older relative with health concerns like COPD, diabetes, or other immune compromising issues.
How many of you would be okay with sitting in a stadium two seats away from somebody that you know has Covid with a 101° fever on a hot day where they are sweating, coughing, sniffling, and wiping their hands over their forehead and flinging the sweat? How many of you would play any type of athletic game where somebody in the game had the same symptoms? How many of you believe the proposed system of return would be 100% honest?
Bro my company has 40K employees worldwide and around half that many in the US. We have operated with hundreds of employees under roof through out this entire pandemic with very little disruption. My location was the first with a positive employee back in early March…this employee had been in close contact with many other employees. No one else developed the virus. We have had zero cases since March with over 300 employees. We have some simple safety SOPs in place. People will get COVID but if you are healthy and under 65 chances are you will be fine. I was at a funeral here in Ms yesterday with 500 people saw maybe 1 mask. Guess we all cazy but COVID has had almost zero impact on me or anyone else I know. Time to get kids back in school and athletes on the field.
PS I have a college athlete and another one at an SEC school. No issues with either going back and I will be at the first game if they let me in.