Hurricanes welcome back 65 players to campus. They face testing and contact tracing
The Miami Hurricanes kick off “Phase 1” of bringing athletes back on to campus Monday with the first wave of athletes gaining access to campus facilities for voluntary workouts.
Miami is welcoming 65 football players, all of whom already live in South Florida, as it kicks off its formal “return-to-campus plan” as Florida continues to reopen amid the COVID-10 pandemic
“We are excited to start bringing our student-athletes and staff back to campus,” athletic director Blake James said in a release. “We have worked diligently with our colleagues on campus and at UHealth to ensure that we have a plan in place to bring them back safely and securely and that is consistent with the broader University plan.”
The Hurricanes’ plan calls for baseline COVID-19 testing, contact tracing, and daily symptom and temperature screening, the university announced.
Miami put together its safety protocol with input from university officials, UHealth physicians and administrators, UHealth Sports Medicine, and local and state officials.
The full protocol includes the ability to work out while abiding by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s social-distancing guidelines, further education, daily temperature checks, baseline coronavirus testing before first engaging in organized activity, additional testing for athletes when symptomatic, quarantine protocol for those who do test positive, contact tracing, and a return-to-activity plan for those who test positive and recover.
Phase 1 will also bring athletic trainers, strength-and-conditioning coaches, and selected academic services staff back to campus.
For the voluntary workouts, athletes will be broken into groups of eight with an athletic trainer, and strength and conditioning coach present, in accordance with NCAA guidelines.
Workouts will take place inside the Carol Soffer Indoor Practice Facility, Squillante Strength & Conditioning Center and out on Greentree Practice Fields. Players have had access to Greentree Fields for unsupervised voluntary workouts since June 2, coach Manny Diaz said.
The facilities will all look a little bit different. All athletic facilities have been outfitted with more hand-sanitizing stations, and more frequent surface disinfection for frequently used common areas and touch points. Coaches and athletes are required to remain six feet apart when possible, and masks or face coverings are required in public areas.
The next steps in the Hurricanes’ return-to-campus plan includes a phased return for the rest of the football team, plus women’s soccer, women’s volleyball, and men’s and women’s basketball. Once those five teams are all back in Coral Gables, Miami will bring the rest of its teams back to campus.
Phase 1 puts the Hurricanes on track to begin an even more formal preseason plan next month.
On Thursday, the NCAA’s Division I Football Oversight Committee released a proposed preseason model in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Division I Council will vote on the proposal Wednesday and it is expected to be approved. The NCAA’s proposal may require athletes “to participate in up to eight hours of weight training, conditioning and film review per week” beginning in mid-July. The required hours could ramp up to 20 per week later in the month and into early August before training camp would begin.
This story was originally published June 15, 2020 at 12:22 PM.
