NASHVILLE — The sports world is on halt due to the coronavirus pandemic.
With spring sports canceled and on and off-campus football recruiting not occurring until at least April 15, it remains unclear when the sports world will resume.
The United States is in the first phase of flattening the curve of the coronavirus outbreak with citizens practicing social distancing and in self-quarantine at their residence.
Dr. William Schaffner, M.D., and Professor, Preventive Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, discussed with Vols Wire the reality if the college football season can be played in 2020.
“I can tell you, it is a subject that is under intense discussion,” Schaffner said. “In fact, there is question of how much recruiting should go on, whether there should be summer practices and all of those issues. The NCAA advisory panel on the coronavirus is discussing those issues as we speak.”
Schaffner is on the NCAA coronavirus advisory panel and provided insight of how a process to determine if playing a college football season in 2020 is feasible.
Feasibility includes if student-athletes are physically capable to play. Being able to play is dependent on when and if practices can take place and an unknown of when gyms could re-open to train and workout in.
The uncertainty provides a notion that the reality of having the 2020 college football season is far from certain.
“There are a whole series of issues like that causing coaches and others a fair amount of concern, as you can imagine,” Schaffner said. “Gyms are closed, players cannot even do conventional strength training in many institutions. They cannot gather together to practice, which a lot of people do informally and formally.
“I know we are in unprecedented times, and the times that the coronavirus have created will create ripple effects that will go beyond of what they have already done to sports.”
Schaffner views the the next 3-4 weeks as a period that will show an increase in cases within the pandemic.
“I do believe that the next 3-4 weeks are going to be a period in which — around the country and not evenly distributed — we are going to see a surge in cases coming to medical care,” he said.
Will the coronavirus pandemic start to diminish during the summer with warm weather — and could it come back in the fall and winter?
“My answers to both questions are a gentle yes,” Schaffner said. “This is a novel coronavirus, but the human coronaviruses that cause common colds, strains that do that and they are rather seasonal and not as dramatically seasonal as influenza is because the flu basically disappears during the summer unless you look really, really hard for it, but for all intensive purposes it is gone.
“The human coronaviruses do have a seasonal prominence, but they do not go away as completely in the summer as does influenza. This is a novel virus and who knows what it is going to do and I do not know whether this novel virus has read the text book and knows what it is supposed to do, so it may do something a little different. I do think it will not disappear completely and I think it is likely that during this next winter we will kind of have a double-barreled respiratory virus season with influenza viruses, along with the coronavirus, in a much diminished form.”
The process to determine if schools can field a team and play football this fall are on going with a series of recommendations being provided to the board of the NCAA from the panel. The board will eventually make a final decision with the help of receptive notions that have been sent to them by the panel.
“The panel was established around six weeks ago,” Schaffner said. “It was established to help the NCAA deal with the coronavirus situation. It is a wonderful committee and people really listen to each other. Dr. Brian Hainline is the Chief Medical Officer of the NCAA. He is an absolutely wonderful moderator and is thoughtful and careful. We talk about the medical, virological and public health issues. The financial aspect does not even enter the discussion.
“It is a high-level and professional discussion aimed at doing the best for everyone and not just the athletes. Everyone who is involved in the NCAA sports, whether it is coaches, people that work in arenas, hot dog vendors, spectators, it is a huge phenomenon when you think about it and we are in charge to think about the public health aspect and that is it. The board takes care of the other issues. These issues are well known and are being discussed by the NCAA panel. The panel will be making recommendations in fairly short order to the NCAA. There are panel members that have close associations with coaches across the country.”
All options are being discussed for the health and well-being of everyone involved for the ability of schools to field teams again.
Schaffner also discussed the option of college football playing in the spring of 2021 if schools do not compete this fall.
“That question has all kinds of ramifications because there is a terrific amount of preparatory work that goes on in training,” he said. “Those individuals, to get physically fit, and even more important as a team so that you are blended together, to work together appropriately, and by at large football is an outdoor sport. You have winter weather to contend with.
“There are things about sports organizations and rules about when teams can practice together, how much time they can practice together and all of that designed to protect the athlete. It is a question that is simply stated, but implies something very complicated.”