Limited Tiger football athletes to return to campus June 6
University of Memphis mascot Pouncer (middle) dances with Michael McGee (left) and Robby Dockery (right) during the Cotton Bowl last December in Arlington, Texas. (Mark Weber/Daily Memphian file)
University of Memphis football student-athletes will begin returning to campus next week, the latest step to the slow resurrection of college sports in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic.
Laird Veatch
The university’s athletic department sent players an email Wednesday announcing the start date of “Phase 0.” In the initial phase, a limited number of athletic department staff, football staff and football athletes will be allowed to return to campus.
“It’s nice to be talking about something positive and getting them back,” Athletic Director Laird Veatch said Wednesday. “There’s a lot of other words that come to mind like curious and thoughtful.”
The plan will feature strict protocols for a limited number of staff and student-athletes, which could change in the future depending on the success rate of each phase.
Veatch said the goal is to start with football, and, if all goes according to plans, football’s Phase 1 would begin June 15. Men’s and women’s basketball would start on their Phase 0 on June 15. The university is coordinating testing efforts with AEL Labs. Phase 0 will provide a baseline test for the athletes and staff.
”The safety of our staff, student-athletes and coaches is the driver of this plan,” Veatch said in a news release regarding the return. “We are allowing the medical experts to guide every aspect of the re-socialization and will continue to do so throughout the process.”
According to the university, 'Phase 0’ will include “screening, testing, social distancing, prevention, cleaning, communication and more.”
“Then we’ll go into a whole other set of protocals,” Veatch said. “If there is any positive test, we go into a quarantine process. Part of the front end process is you fill out a questionnaire about your living situation, who you are around. And then, as part of the daily screening process, they’re asked another set of questions about who they’ve been around in the last day or two.
“You can then go into a contact tracing process and then go into the quarantine process based on the latest guidelines.”
Like several other teams across the country, the Tigers training and practices were put on hold in March after the coronavirus brought athletics to a halt.
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University of Memphis athletics Laird Veatch coronavirusDrew Hill
Drew Hill covers the Memphis Grizzlies and is a top-10 APSE winner. He has worked throughout the South writing about college athletics before landing in Memphis.
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