Nick Saban Reminds UA Students that College Football Depends on Social Distancing
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama football coach Nick Saban took time during his Monday press conference corresponding with the opening of fall camp to address a concern that arose over the weekend in Tuscaloosa:
The practicing of social distancing.
This past weekend, numerous reports and photos appeared on social media of Alabama students and their families — having just returned to campus for the start of the fall semester — crowding local bars and other hotspots with little or no regard for social distancing or the current mask mandate in the city, especially outside those establishments.
The posts on social media even caught the eye of Alabama director of athletics Greg Byrne, who responded in kind:
When asked about what he thought about this past weekend's antics, Saban was quick to let his thoughts be known.
“I think democracy is great and I think people that have all these freedoms I think that’s all great but I think there’s one thing that is probably a common denominator that really makes all that work and that’s that people have great moral integrity in the choices and decisions that they make,” Saban said. “I’m not criticizing anybody here but a lot of people have asked that we wear masks when we’re in public — when we’re in crowds, when we’re in large groups of people, that we keep [a] social distance — I don’t think they’re doing that just for the heck of it. I think there’s a reason for it.
"We’re trying to control the spread of this disease and I think our ability to do that’s going to go a long way in saying whether we can play football or not. But bigger than that, it’s just your own personal bubble for your own personal safety for every one of these students to take the proper care of themselves and respect the protocols that people are recommending for your safety. I just think that that’s the smart thing to do.”
Over the past several weeks that students have been tested, less than one percent have reported testing positive for COVID-19. However, with the students returning en masse for the start of classes, the odds of increasing the spread dramatically increase.
During his press conference, Saban outlined the many methods of social distancing that Alabama football is currently undergoing including mandatory testing and mask policy. Saban also revealed that during tonight's players meeting that United States surgeon general Dr. Jerome M. Adams will be speaking.
"We have a lot of respect for what we need to do with everyone in our organization in terms of what we have to do to stay safe," Saban said. "We all wear masks in our building; I just took mine off to come in here. Because it was so hot outside, I wear one that’s around your neck and you pull up like you’re robbing a bank — whatever they’re called. Everybody in the building does that. And we’ve done everything we can do here.
"We test our players at the beginning on Sunday. We’ve done it ever since the Fourth of July so they know that the players they’re working out with are healthy and safe. And we do it later in the week. Our players are used to being tested twice a week, which most people is just starting now but we’ve been doing that all along because I want every player to know that the guy he was working out with or doing some drill with or whatever was not something that he had to fear. I think that’s helped us tremendously."
After discussing the measures that Alabama is taking to prevent the spread of the coronavirus among the Crimson Tide players, Saban also spoke about how he himself is listening to the social distancing guidelines and is applying them to ensure that he keeps his personal bubble safe.
"Look, I practice social distancing," Saban said. "We try to keep our distance when we’re away from here, our personal bubble, Miss Terry and I and our immediate family. When I go see my mother who’s 88 years old, we sit 10 feet apart on a park bench and talk for 45 minutes or an hour and I say, ‘Mom, I’m not giving you a hug today because I love you.’ I think there’s a lot of changes that we all have to make in our lifestyle and the things that we do to try to stay safe, and we certainly have respected those things. We do the same thing when we’re in meetings with players — we stay spread out, everybody has social distance, everybody wears a mask.
"So we’re doing everything we can to stay safe. I don’t fear this because we’re trying to do the right thing and we have great medical care here and we have great medical protocols to try to keep people safe. And I feel very confident in trying to respect and do those things as well as possible."
