Boston College Football Looks To Return But COVID19's Shadow Still Looms Over Sports

As BC gets set to return to campus, other programs continue to deal with outbreaks of COVID19.

Boston College football is rumored to resume on campus activities as early as this week. After months of waiting, along with social distancing, it appears that players will be heading back to Chestnut Hill to start preparations for the 2020 season. However, throughout the country there have been a series of incidents that have put a dark shadow over the return of college football and sports in general.

Over the weekend, 28 players and staff at Clemson, mostly in the football department tested positive for COVID-19. Luckily most of these cases were asymptomatic, and the the effected person will just need to self quarantine. At the time of this writing it is is the largest set of positive tests in an athletic department at a reopened college. 

The troubling trend continued as Kansas State shut down all voluntary workouts after fourteen players tested positive for COVID19 over the weekend. Then yesterday LSU had 30 players either had to self quarantine because they were near infected people, or were infected themselves. It seems that the list of these incidents grows every day. 

On top of all the outbreaks, have been the reactions from both players and coaches/administration. At Ohio State, players were asked to sign a COVID-19 risk waiver, that included per Heather Dinich "testing and potential self-quarantining, monitoring for symptoms, reporting any potential exposure in a timely manner and to practice Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, such as wearing a mask and practicing social distancing." While at UCLA players demanded a third party health official on hand at all workouts, because they don't believe that head coach Chip Kelly has their best interest at heart. It will be interesting to see how schools and players look to protect themselves and their safety as this process continues to unfold.

While it is exciting to get sports back, there has to be some skepticism about it actually getting us to a season. As teams are forced to start and stop like KSU, they are going to fall further behind in preparations as players recuperate and regain their strength. It seems daily news that another program has players testing positive, and it would be naive to think that this trend will stop anytime soon. As mentioned before, be prepared this upcoming season, it could have many stops and starts for many programs as they struggle with the virus.

The hope is that Boston College players and staff will get back to campus safe and healthy. The administration has been hard at work to make the return as safe as possible. But be prepared. It only takes one player to return to campus positive that could cause a domino chain reaction, and everything will pause again. The team could progress to in person practices, and a staff member could test positive, which could be all it takes to pause practice. Player and staff safety is paramount in this situation, and teams are going to be cautious as they start to try to regain some normalcy. 

We all want to see sports return. But don't expect it to be a straight line from now until opening kickoff. 

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