Pac-12 Will Require Athletes to Be Tested When They Return to Campus
The Pac-12 will require all athletes returning to campus to be tested for COVID-19 before they can participate in voluntary workouts, and they must also undergo antibody testing, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott told 247Sports recently.
The Pac-12 is allowing its schools to return for voluntary workouts on June 15, and the conference wants to have one plan in place for all of its schools. Cal has not announced when its voluntary workouts can begin.
The conference will also require student-athletes to be tested weekly once voluntary workouts are underway.
“We are going to have uniformity in the Pac-12,” Scott said, according to the 247Sports report. “We’ve got a very strong medical advisory committee made up of our team docs and trainers. But we've got seven or eight infectious disease experts that are associated with these great university hospitals and medical research centers. They have specialists in this area and the collaboration has been terrific.”
So far, the Pac-12 is the only Power 5 conference to announce uniform testing protocols for the novel coronavirus.
It remains unclear what the requirements for testing will be when preseason practice begins and whether that will change during game weeks. Scott suggests that uniformity is needed once regular-season games are played, especially if a Pac-12 team is facing a team from another conference. He admitted that reaching agreement will be difficult.
Scott told 247Sports that testing protocols “will continue to evolve” as the summer continues.
Six Pac-12 schools are located in the two states in that have yet to open its gyms: Washington and California. There have been indications that both states are likely to open their gyms sometime in June.
Cal’s first regular-season game is scheduled for Aug. 29 against UNLV at the new
In another 247Sports story, Scott seems to suggest that the Pac-12 is supportive of student-athletes being involved in protests.
“We’re always supportive of student-athletes using their platform to try to advance the world,” Scott said. “We've got a very impressive group of student-athlete leaders that meet at the conference level and they perform community service. They talk about activism and we are a platform to try to enable and support that conversation.”
Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53
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