Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin tested positive for coronavirus last month, but has since recovered, said Tuesday.
During a Zoom teleconference with reporters, Stricklin said he had mild symptoms ranging from a runny nose, headache, congestion and chills. After feeling sick for the first time, he was immediately tested for coronavirus, and when the test came back positive, he was quarantined for 10 days from the onset of symptoms.
Stricklin said he had 48 hours where he felt “really crabby” and then another three or four days that “he didn’t feel like going out to run a marathon. After that, I felt like he was back to normal.”
“I thought he was being careful, but obviously this is a highly communicable disease,” Stricklin said, adding that he was initially angry that he put himself in that situation. “It speaks to the importance of all of us doing our part with masking and physical distancing. It’s really important. Hopefully, we can help keep others safe during this process by doing our part.”
Stricklin also updated the current numbers of coronavirus tests among student athletes on campus for volunteer training. As of this weekend, 238 tests had been performed on athletes from all sports, with 29 positive results. When the athletes initially returned to campus, Florida conducted 188 tests with three positive results. The 26 positives come from 50 additional tests performed after athletes showed symptoms or suspected testing.
All of this speaks to the difficulty of trying to predict when and if a sports season can take place without a vaccine. SEC athletic directors met in Birmingham, Alabama on Monday to discuss a wide range of topics, including scheduling. The Big Ten and Pac-12 have already announced a change to conference-only hours.
But Stricklin said the programming is secondary to trying to establish test and security protocols, which are still in the process of being done.
“I know everyone is concerned about a schedule, and we are driven by this artificial timeline of saying Labor Day weekend that we are all going to start because that is what we have always done, but until Let’s find out some of these other pieces, it’s really hard to guess what that other part looks like, “Stricklin said. “Right now, there is no way to really know.”
Stricklin was also asked about the possibility of the season moving to spring.
“There is still a lot of information that we need before we get to the point where we feel like we can safely carry out a game,” Stricklin said. “If that’s September, great. If that’s a different month on the calendar that allows us to do it this school year, I don’t think any of us is in a position to be selective right now.”
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