Many Florida athletes have returned to campus to resume sports activities, with mandatory training for the soccer team beginning Monday.
When they returned, the Gators have been rigorous in following the COVID-19 protocols established by UF Health. Those protocols include each athlete who undergoes the COVID-19 tests upon return, as well as a complete physical examination.
Since the return began, Florida has conducted a total of 188 tests on returning athletes when they arrived, obtaining only three positive results from that group. But the Gators have also conducted additional tests on student-athletes since then, based on those athletes showing symptoms associated with the coronavirus or their responses to a short health questionnaire that they must answer upon arriving at the team’s facilities at the beginning of each training.
Those tests have detected several positive cases, with 26 additional positive results marked from the initial batch of tests.
In total, as of this weekend, Florida had administered 238 total tests, with 29 positive results. Athletic director Scott Stricklin noticed that some athletes had been tested multiple times.
Those numbers have illustrated the challenges in any type of return to normal athletics.
“We have had a fairly robust screening and testing program and have found some positives,” Stricklin said. “We have advanced from March to June in how we handle it and how we see it. One of the things they have taught us is that we have a way of caring for them and providing athletes while they are here if they happen to test positive.
“The other thing, however, is that it really does point out what the challenges will be with quarantine. Quarantine healthy people who have been exposed to those who have tested positive and how widespread that will be.”
Even without large numbers of students on campus during the summer, the spread of the coronavirus is evident. And because of the quarantine measures in place once student athletes are marked as positive, it has been difficult to get entire teams to work together at once.
At two different periods in the past two months, Swamp247 has learned through sources that groups of multiple Florida soccer players have had to be quarantined. In mid-June, five to six players were sidelined after showing symptoms, while near the end of June and early July, the number of quarantined players reached low double digits.
“Don’t limit yourself to these numbers, but maybe a dozen is our top mark from a quarantine point of view,” Stricklin said.
Even Stricklin himself revealed that he tested positive for the coronavirus in June. Although Stricklin’s symptoms were quite mild, according to his description, he was annoyed with himself for having contracted it despite taking precautions.
“My symptoms were mild, so I never had anxiety,” Stricklin said. “I was a little angry with myself for putting myself in that situation. My family is fine. I was quarantined, they asked me to quarantine for 10 days from the start of my symptoms.”
“I started feeling bad one night with a runny nose. They were fairly mild symptoms: stuffy, runny nose, headache. I woke up the next morning, I didn’t feel much better. Far chills. The first thing on this day and how old I was it goes through your mind is ‘I wonder if this is so’ I called one of our doctors and they did a test and they found me sometime the next day. “
So while Florida is exceptionally well equipped to handle the coronavirus thanks to its relationship with UF Health, which is one of the state’s most advanced medical facilities when it comes to testing and treatment, it is clear that impending decisions against the SEC They won’t be easy.
The league hopes to wait as long as possible before making a final decision on fall soccer, and will likely not announce anything until near the end of July.
That was Stricklin’s overall message in his Zoom video conference Tuesday with reporters. The league will continue to wait, but it will have to find a way to make sure that the student athletes are safe if they expect to resume play.
“Time may not be on our side now as it was a month or two ago,” he said.
