With the 2020 football season being a little bit more than 2 months away, COVID-19 is a concern amongst many people.
SWOSU, along with other schools across the nation are, taking extreme protocols and precautions to ensure the spread of COVID-19 does not spread rapidly. “We have been discussing lots of
“We have been discussing lots of protocols for the players and coaches safety,” football coach Chet Pobolish said. “We have been discussing what to do on and off the football field, in the weight room for workouts and the locker room. We actually changed some of our locker room policies for the summer and it is off limits for the summer.”
Pobolish said they practice social distancing as much as possible and as soon as they heard the news about what was happening with COVID-19 in March, they and all the players and coaches cleaned out the locker room and the coaches disinfected the entire locker room when everything was moved out. Another way to ensure social distancing is the football players and coaches are having their summer meetings on Zoom.
“We try to do most of our meetings on Zoom,” Pobolish said. “We washed all the laundry and jerseys and disinfected all the helmets and shoulder pads. Maintence came and cleaned after we cleaned, but we wanted to make sure we double checked everything.”
If a player or coach tests positive for COVID-19, SWOSU currently does not have an official policy set in place.
“Right now, if we have an athlete or coach test positive for COVID-19, we will set them up with our team doctors,” athletic trainer Edwin Detweiler said. “Obviously, we will remove them from other players and coaches, but we do not have an official policy yet.”
Detweiler said they definitely are in the process of making a policy for exactly what will happen when a player or coach tests positive for COVID-19, but it can get complicated.
“We still are in the process of coming up with a policy for what happens when someone tests positive for COVID-19,” Detweiler said. “I have been doing so much research and this always is changing. I have learned a lot of times people can be contagious 2 days before showing any symptoms, so it makes this really complicated.
Detweiler said it gets even more complicated if someone tests positive for COVID-19 if they have been around other players or coaches in a group.
“If someone tests positive, we will track and find out who they have been around the past couple days and get them all tested,” Detweiler said. “It can be tough, for example if say an offensive lineman tests positive for COVID-19, but has been in team meetings and practicing around other lineman. Hopefully, the meetings are spread apart, but the college athlete is most likely going to be ok and recover if they do come down with COVID-19, but at the same time, we do not want to spread this around to other people.”
SWOSU football is taking even more precautions and being as preventive as possible by disinfecting anything and everything the players touch. When the football players play catch, they disinfect the ball as soon as they are done playing catch. Pobolish said ensuring social distancing in football can be tough since it is a contact sport and the players are so close to each other.
“Football is all about teamwork and tackling,” Pobolish said. “We want to educate our players and we will hold them responsible and ensure they are taking precautions to keep everyone safe.”
For summer workouts, players will have their temperatures taken and will have a questionnaire they have to fill out with questions about any symptoms they might have. After practice ends, there will be time for players to help clean the weight room.