ACC commish believes in vaccines -- but league not mandating
New Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner Jim Phillips made it clear Wednesday at the ACC Football Kickoff that he believes strongly that athletes should be vaccinated for COVID-19 — but that he also believes in “personal choice’’ and the ACC is not mandating that players be vaccinated.
“Those decisions will remain at the discretion of each member institution,’’ said Phillips, the former athletic director at Northwestern University.
Phillips said the ACC medical advisory group “continues to meet regularly” and that he anticipates a report by the group to be released in coming weeks.
“I believe vaccines are critical...in eliminating the Covid-19 virus and its variants, but I also deeply respect that getting vaccinated is a personal choice.”
He said seven schools (one includes Notre Dame, which is not a football member) in the ACC have mandated that all students on campus must be vaccinated. The University of Miami, as of now, is not one of those schools. He said “over half’’ of the ACC teams have reached an 85-percent vaccination threshold and that others are getting close. He did not name specific teams.
Phillips also said the league will decide and release any pending rules on whether games will be forfeited should teams not have enough healthy players at various positions to compete. “We’ll understand the variant [Delta]” a little more in the near future.
▪ Earlier Wednesday morning, Miami Hurricanes coach Manny Diaz went on WQAM and said UM is making inroads in its player vaccinations. But he didn’t disclose how many players have been vaccinated.
