How Colleges are preparing for student-athletes to return
How Colleges are preparing for student-athletes to return
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00:00Major college conference commissioners are in daily deliberations about how to save the
00:052020 football season, while programs across the country are in the early stages of developing
00:10reopening plans for their training facilities.
00:12So joining me now is SI College football writer Ross Dellinger, and Ross, the NCAA could lift
00:17a nationwide moratorium on on-campus summer activities, meaning schools could welcome
00:22back their athletes as soon as June 1st.
00:24As several college programs have already begun preparing for this, how likely is that for
00:29it to be cleared?
00:30Yeah, I think most expect the division one, the NCAA division one council on Wednesday
00:37to lift the moratorium on on-campus athletic activities.
00:42They do have three options.
00:43So they could extend the moratorium, which right now ends May 31st, they could extend
00:48it or they could lift it in two different ways.
00:52They could loosen the rule very lightly and allow for players to come back in a voluntary
00:58nature where they won't have coaching and coaching interaction, or they could lift it
01:03all the way and make it just like a normal summer workout, which would mean coaches will
01:07be involved and in-string coaches would be heavily involved and be able to interact with
01:12them.
01:13So there are kind of three options.
01:14I think most people believe that the second option, kind of the middle of the two, will
01:19be allowed and that players can come back to campuses and do voluntary training kind
01:25of on their own.
01:26So they'll be supervised a little bit, but no coaching interaction.
01:31Now obviously safety, a priority in evaluating all of this, but what are schools doing to
01:35make their facilities safer?
01:37Well, a lot of things, you know, first it's PPE, the protective, personal protective equipment
01:45like gloves and masks.
01:46Talk to some schools that have ordered and secured over a thousand masks and over four
01:54or five thousand pairs of gloves.
01:57And then you've got the whole sanitation of the building.
02:00You know, you have these massive disinfecting foggers that blast chemicals in weight rooms
02:06and such, and these chemicals bond and they form this protection and virus germ killing
02:13protection.
02:14And then of course, you know, the big concern is for not the kids, which they're ages 18
02:22to 24, is the coaches and staff members who are above the age of 40, 50, 60, they're going
02:28to have to be real careful, you know, wearing masks, wearing gloves, things like that.
02:33Players will be screened as they come into the building, it'll be like a human car wash
02:37is how some AEDs have described it.
02:40In the analogy, the player is the vehicle and he moves through the car wash from the
02:44screening process to other cleaning areas of the building to get disinfected before
02:50you go into the weight room to train, then you move outside to do conditioning, and then
02:56finally you exit the building in a separate exit from the entrance and you leave.
03:02So it's, you come in, you basically work out, and then you leave, there's no kind of hanging
03:08around.
03:09Obviously, a lot of precautions in place to make sure that these athletes are safe as
03:13they pursue a 2020 college football season.
03:16SI's Ross Dellinger, thanks so much for the insight.
03:19Sure.